


Red Door On The Right

by la_muerta



Series: The Haunting of Blackthorn House [1]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Reality Show, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, F/M, Horror, Lightwood Siblings Feels, M/M, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, Sharing a Bed, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-07-21 01:42:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16149902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_muerta/pseuds/la_muerta
Summary: Without Alec's knowledge, Jace and Izzy sign all three of them up for a reality TV programme where ten participants have to spend three nights in a supposedly haunted mansion to each win a cool million bucks. It's not a competition, and everyone who manages to stay in the house until the end will get their share of the prize money. Alec thinks it sounds too good to be true, until he realises that staying in the house until the end of the three nights isn't going to be the problem - the challenge is stayingalive.





	1. Day One, 3PM

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the #SHHalloweenFic event organised by @BoomBitchesSH on twitter! ;)

 

 

 

 

   

 

"I can't believe I let you two talk me into wasting half of my fall break doing this," Alec grumbled as he reluctantly got out of the car. 

"Alec, we get one million dollars  _each_ just for spending three nights in this place," Jace huffed. "Do you have any idea how many coffees I would have to sell to get money like that?"  

Alec frowned. "But I thought your coffee truck was doing well. If you needed the cash, you could have just told us." 

"Yeah, it's doing great - which is why I was thinking of getting a proper shopfront," Jace said. "Besides, spare cash is always welcome. Like, I know you love your job teaching the kids at the special needs school and wouldn't change a thing, but don't you wish you had a bit more money to go travelling during the summer?"  

"Let's go on a road trip this summer! Just the three of us," Izzy said as she popped open the trunk to get out their bags. "We've all been so busy with our jobs, we haven't really had time to hang out together like we used to."

"Sounds like a plan - but first we're going to have to survive... _Blackthorn House_ ," Jace intoned in a low, spooky voice, right in Izzy's ear, and laughed when Izzy smacked him hard on the shoulder.

"I have to say, it's not what I expected," Alec said, peering through the elaborate wrought iron gates that formed the only visible way through the tall moss-covered brick wall that went all around the property. There was some sort of overgrown garden in front, maybe a hedge maze that had gone untended for too long, blocking his view of most of the main building. But from what he could see, it was a beautiful house, if a little rundown. The dark stone was covered with moss and strangling creepers, but even those could not completely obscure the delicate carvings that decorated the pretty rounded bay windows, and the bristling turrets and elaborate asymmetrical roof looked quite picturesque in the golden afternoon light. "Didn't it use to be a mental asylum?" 

"Yeah, but before that, Blackthorn House was the private home of a rich man," Izzy said. "Didn't you look at the stuff Max printed out for us?"

"I did. Kind of hard not to, what with Max practically bouncing off the walls in excitement and shoving the stuff in my face," Alec said wryly.

"It's great, isn't it? Classic haunted house stuff," Jace enthused. "Guy's wife died in childbirth. Eldest daughter fell in love with her father's personal assistant and was off fooling around somewhere instead of looking after her two younger siblings, and the twins drowned in the swimming pool. Daughter and lover hanged themselves out of guilt, old man Blackthorn went mad and set himself and half the place on fire, and the property went to the state after his death."

"I knew all of that," Alec huffed. "But it was a penitentiary for the criminally insane for almost a hundred years after that, before it was closed down for good. I was expecting iron bars on the windows and stuff like that."

"Oh, it wasn't in Max's research notes, but I did some digging and found out that almost a decade ago, someone bought it and restored it, intending to turn it into a hotel, but there was a tragic accident and the project was abandoned. That's why they're opening it up for the reality TV programme - I think whoever inherited the place is trying to generate some publicity so that they can try to restart the project," Izzy said. 

Alec wrinkled his nose. "And advertising a place as being  _haunted_  is going to encourage people to want to stay here?"  

"Sometimes any publicity is good publicity," Izzy said with a shrug. "Besides, there are people who are into this sort of thing."

"Yeah, _crazy_ people," Alec muttered.  

"What, for wanting to stay in a haunted house?" Jace asked. 

"No, for believing that ghosts actually exist," Alec said with a derisive snort. He pushed the button on the call box at the side of the imposing gate. "Alec, Jace, and Isabelle Lightwood. We're here for the TV show?" he answered the tinny voice that came through the speakers, and after a few minutes, the gates swung open automatically with a suitably ominous screech.

Alec rolled his eyes at what was probably going to be the first of many theatrics he was going to have to put up with over the next three days. "Come on, then. We were supposed to be inside there 20 minutes ago."

They were the last of the participants to arrive. A harried production assistant had come to meet them halfway through the overgrown front garden, clipboard in hand and a staticky earpiece crackling so loudly that Alec winced on her behalf. They were ushered quickly past the cavernous foyer, down a dark hallway that had once been lined with large picture frames, judging from the rectangles of faded wallpaper, and into a sizeable room that Alec decided must be the dining room. The three Lightwoods shoved their bags out of the way under their chairs and hurriedly sat down at the long dining table. Jace and Izzy flashed charming smiles and murmured apologies to the director and producer, and Alec left them to do the job of smoothing down ruffled feathers while he sized up the competition.

Alec counted seven other people seated round the table: a guy wearing specs, sitting next to a red-haired girl; a handsome Asian man with his hair done up in a faux hawk, distractedly fiddling with one of the many rings on his fingers; a woman, also of Asian descent, whispering something to the dark-haired man next to her; and two men who were registering off the charts on Alec's gaydar, obviously a couple. He supposed these were the other participants on the reality TV show.

A small host of production assistants descended on the three Lightwoods, fixing their hair and dabbing the shine off their faces with powdered foundation before scurrying off again. There were maybe another dozen crew members scuttling around the room, setting up lights and boom mics, and Alec was uncomfortably aware that there were a couple of cameras trained on them. One camera in the corner, however, was aimed at a beautiful woman that Alec found vaguely familiar, probably some lesser-known actress. An assistant was trying to fix a lock of her hair that refused to stay in place, and after a while the woman waved the assistant off irritably.

"Ok, one minute to rolling!" the producer called out. 

"What, we're starting already?" Alec whispered to his siblings, starting to panic. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Just smile at the camera," Izzy muttered at him from the side of her mouth.

"3... 2... 1... Action!"

Alec snapped ramrod straight and tried not to look like a deer caught in the headlights. 

The host of the show smiled winningly at the camera. "I'm Camille Belcourt, and welcome to Blackthorn House. Miles away from the comforting, familiar lights of the nearest city and surrounded by acres of forest, this is a site of tragic deaths, terrible suicides, and the horrific abuse of patients at the hands of the people who were supposed to care for them, and one of the most haunted places in the country. For almost a decade, nobody has dared to set foot in this house - until now. We've invited ten brave souls to take up the challenge of spending three nights in this house, and any of them who survive the ordeal will walk away with one million dollars in cold hard cash."

"The rules are very simple. Participants will be split into five teams of two people each. Teammates will share one bedroom, and must stay together at all times. They are free to do whatever they want to do during the day, but every evening at 7pm sharp, all ten participants are required to return to this room and eat their evening meal together, as proof that they are still here and are ready to brave another night of the terrors that await them in Blackthorn House. At 7.30pm, the producers will send a text to each of those phones over there," she indicated a row of five colour-coded phones sitting in a plexiglass case on the mantlepiece, "with the photo of an unique item that's somewhere inside this house, one for each team. If they choose to do so, they can take up the additional challenge of finding this item and bringing it to this room before daybreak to win an additional $10,000 per team." 

Jace let out a low whistle. 

Camille flashed Jace a smile, then looked back at the camera. "Without further ado, let's meet the participants of the inaugural season of  _Fearless_." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wrote a fun little thing for the event... then I was attacked by another plot bunny, and figured that if I was going to write this anyway, I might as well include it as part of the event.
> 
> I aim to finish this fic by Halloween, if not the end of the event posting :)


	2. Day One, 4.30PM

 

 

Camille held her position and smile for a few seconds, then the director shouted, "Cut! That was perfect, Camille. Now let's move on to the participants."

The crew started shifting equipment around, and the director came over to them. "I just need you to state your name clearly for the camera, and tell us two interesting things about yourself. It can be anything - your job, something about your family, or a hobby. Something that makes you more relatable and likeable," he told them briskly before hurrying off to instruct his crew.

"Relatable and likeable? I thought this thing was pre-recorded. Do the audience get to vote people off?" Alec asked his siblings, but it was the bespectacled guy sitting next to Izzy who replied. 

"No, it's not a competitive show! Sorry to butt in, but I couldn't help overhearing," he said with a cheery grin. "All of us get a fair chance at our share of the prize money, and nobody gets extra if the others leave. So it really makes more sense if we all band together. I'm Simon, by the way. I'm here with my best friend, Clary," he said, gesturing at his redheaded friend, who was deep in conversation with the guy next to her.  

They made brief introductions all around and shook hands, then Simon told Alec, "By the way, I think all the official rules were in the contracts we signed when we confirmed that we were participating."  

Alec frowned. "What contracts? All I remember was that non-disclosure one, and that didn't have anything about rules." 

"Uh... No, the longer one. The one that had the media release clause. Where we had to agree to being filmed at all times, for the entire duration of the shoot?" 

Alec blinked. "Come again?" 

"You know, hidden cameras and stuff like that?" 

"Oh, he's been working too hard, he gets all absent-minded," Jace said with a forced laugh.

Fortunately for his siblings, the producer came along just then to grab Alec for his introduction segment, so he didn't get a chance to interrogate them until later, while the rest of the participants were off filming their own introductions.

"Did you guys forge my signature?!" Alec hissed. 

"We figured you wouldn't want to be on the show if you knew they'd have hidden cameras everywhere," Jace said sheepishly. Alec pinched the bridge of his nose. 

"I told him it was a bad idea. I'll speak to the producers and we'll forfeit right now," Izzy said, already getting up from her seat. 

Alec sighed, then grabbed her arm and shook his head. "Never mind. We're already here, after all."  

"Are you sure?" Izzy asked.

"I knew it was too good to be true. One million bucks just to stay in a creepy old house for three nights, and you're not even supposed to try and backstab each other to get the other people eliminated? Who would watch that? I bet they've got all kinds of crap set up to scare us and make us look like idiots on national television," Alec grumbled. "Do we get to pick our teams, at least? Because after this shit that you two just pulled, you're not pairing up and leaving me to team up with a stranger."

"The show allocates the teams. We don't know who we're pairing up with either," Izzy told him.

"Great. That's just fantastic," Alec muttered, looking around at the other participants with a more critical eye now.

"Sorry, we already did one round of introductions before you guys arrived, but we can go again," Simon's friend said with a smile and an outstretched hand. "I'm Clary." 

"I'm Dot, and this is my husband Elliot," the Asian woman a little further down said with a warm smile, both of them stood up and reached over to shake hands with the Lightwoods.

"I'm Edward, and this is my husband Milo," one of the guys at the end of the table said. 

"We just got married last week!" his husband chimed in, grinning from ear-to-ear and showing off their rings, and the two accepted the congratulations from the Lightwoods with a sort of giddy happiness that Alec envied immediately. 

"And this is Magnus!" Clary said as the last participant rejoined them at the table, having just finished filming his introduction segment. "I'm afraid I'm the one who dragged him here. He's been talking about needing some inspiration for his new book." 

"Wait - Magnus as in Magnus Bane? The author of the _Detective Mortlock_ books?" Dot exclaimed, and Alec froze.

"The one and only," Magnus agreed with a slightly embarrassed laugh.

"My husband and I run a small bookshop, and your books have been flying off the shelves! I've read all of them myself, and they are mind-blowingly good," Dot told him excitedly.

"Thank you, I'm glad you've enjoyed them. But book sales wouldn't be doing half as well if Clary here wasn't such a talented artist. She's the cover artist for all my books, and I bet her gorgeous art is really what's getting people to pick up my books," Magnus said self-depreciatingly.

"Oh, Magnus, that's nonsense. Your writing is incredible," Clary protested, her cheeks turning pink. 

"I'm sure she's right. My big brother is a huge fan of yours, and let me tell you, he's got really picky taste in books," Izzy told Magnus before Alec could stop her.

Magnus looked up at Alec, and Alec lost the ability to speak. Maybe it was the way his eyeliner and dark lashes brought out the warm brown of his eyes, or just the way that the faint laugh lines around his eyes made them look so soft, but Alec just couldn't tear his eyes away from that magnetic gaze - and against all reason, it seemed that Magnus couldn't look away either.  

Jace cleared his throat, breaking the spell. "Bro, are you ok? You've kinda been spacing out at the guy," Jace said in an undertone.

Magnus blinked, apparently trying to collect himself, and said, "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name." 

"I'm Jace, she's Izzy, and he's Alec," Jace replied while Alec was still trying to find his tongue. 

"Is 'Alec' short for 'Alexander'? I've always thought that was a powerful name," Magnus said.  

"Yeah, and 'Izzy' is short for 'Isabelle', and 'Jace' is short for 'Jonathan Christopher' - it's kind of a funny story how I got that nickname-" Jace started, then yelped when Izzy poked him in the ribs, cutting him off. "What was that for?" 

"Nothing," Izzy said innocently.  

"Alright, everybody! Grab your belongings, we're moving to the foyer for the team reveal!" the producer announced.  

"Cool. That should be fun," Simon said cheerfully, without a hint of irony.  

They were herded into the enormous foyer, bags and all, and instructed to wait in a huddle to the left of Camille. The producer briefed them on what to do, and once all the equipment was in place, the director called for action.  

"I have five sets of colour-coded room keys here. When I call your names, come forward to collect your keys, then move to my right with your teammate," Camille said.  

Alec's fingers tightened reflexively on the strap of his backpack. He really hoped that he'd be paired up with one of his siblings, but he had a feeling the whole point was to put two strangers together and see how they played off each other.

"Edward and Milo Longford-Keytower - team blue." 

"Elliot and Dot Nourse - team orange."

"Jace Lightwood and Clary Fray - team purple."

"Simon Lewis and Isabelle Lightwood - team yellow."

"And last but not least, Magnus Bane and Alec Lightwood - team green."

Of course he was being paired up with his favourite author, and easily the hottest guy in the entire room, so he could make a complete fool of himself. Alec sighed in resignation and walked up to collect his key from Camille. They reached for the keys at the same time; Alec's fingers brushed Magnus', and he promptly dropped his key.

"Fuck!"

He bent down to snatch the key off the floor, and waited for the director to shout cut so they could redo that. But the director didn't say anything, so he had to shuffle awkwardly to take his place next to the rest of the teams, the tips of his ears burning with the knowledge that his inability to function in the presence of a hot guy was going to be broadcast on national television. 

"You'll notice that if you're currently single, you've been paired with someone who might click with you, based on the questionnaire you filled in when you signed up for the show. And you're welcome," Camille said with a wink at the camera. 

Alec's mind was whirring so loudly from what Camille had just said that he almost missed the rest of her spiel.  

"This floor plan behind me shows where everybody's rooms are. The five teams have been separated evenly throughout Blackthorn House - two teams are in the East Wing, two teams are in the West Wing, and one team has been allocated a room in the main building. The time now is 6pm, and night falls in about an hour. You may go up to your rooms now, and remember-"

One of the lights, the one furthest from anyone, suddenly exploded in a shower of glass and sparks. Some of the crew members screamed, but Alec was gratified that none of his fellow participants had done anything more than flinch in surprise - it was good to be amongst level-headed people in a set-up like this. 

"It's ok. We can do without that light. Someone clean that up and we can carry on," the producer said, exchanging a significant look with the director.

While the crew were busying clearing up shards of broken glass, Alec sidled over to Jace, who was the closest. "What the fuck is this show? I thought this was going to be more _Paranormal Challenge_ and less _Are You The One?_ " Alec said in a low voice.

"Wait - you actually watch those shows? I thought I was the only one in the house who did!" Jace exclaimed. "Next time _tell_ me, so we can watch together."

"Well, I guess this is how they're going to try to make this more interesting for the audience," Clary said, wrinkling her nose. 

"Don't worry, I'll be the perfect gentleman. I'll sleep on the floor in front of the door if it makes you feel safer," Jace promised jokingly, and Clary laughed. 

The second take of Camille's speech went without a hitch. Alec tried not to be too obvious that he was sticking closer to his brother because he didn't trust himself not to make a fool of himself again around Magnus. Camille informed them that the pantry was fully stocked with frozen microwavable meals as well as things like cereal, biscuits, eggs, and fruit, enough to feed all ten of them for the duration of their stay, "courtesy of Jade Wolf Catering & Grocers - the best place to go to for all your dining needs." Then she made a big show of getting everyone to surrender all their cellphones and tablets by placing them in a safe box that the production crew would be taking away with them when they left the house. She reminded them that the main gates would be chained and locked, but any team that wanted to tap out could call someone from the phone by the gate at any time. 

"And one last thing - you are allowed to go anywhere within the grounds of Blackthorn House, but the owner of the property has requested that nobody should enter the room in the basement with the red door. It's on the right-hand side when you go down the stairs," Camille said in a conspiratorial tone.  

"Yeah, because that's probably where you guys keep all the props that you're going to use to try to scare us," Alec muttered under his breath. 

"The stage is set, the curtain rises. Good luck, ladies and gentlemen - for the next three nights, you're on your own," Camille said, then sauntered towards the front door, blew them a kiss, and walked out of the main door. The heavy door slammed behind her, the sound echoing in the foyer - then the director shouted, "Cut!"  

Someone ran to open the door for Camille, and the crew started scurrying around again, preparing for the next set up. 

"Ok, great job, guys," the director told them. "Now I need all of you to make your way up the stairs with your bags, just up to the second floor, then come back down. We'll film each team going into your rooms individually, but we're going to need to do this one team at a time, because we're taking one camera around the grounds with Camille so she can do pick-up shots introducing all the significant haunted spots. We're going to use the third camera to do one-on-one confessionals on your feelings about everything that has happened so far, and then we'll be out of here."

Alec checked his watch - it was really only 4.30pm, not 6pm like Camille had said on camera, so there was some time before dinner. They dutifully trudged up the grand staircase that led to the second floor and back down again, then everyone sat around cross-legged on the polished wooden floor of the foyer chatting while they waited for their turn to do whatever filming was expected of them. It was oddly reminiscent of being on a school field trip. 

Alec supposed it was possible that the hidden cameras were already rolling, but with all the crew running around, he was reasonably sure that they wouldn't be able to use the footage. This could be their only chance to talk freely without running the risk of having everything broadcast on television. Edward and Milo talked a little bit about how they'd met at an office party, and that they were planning to use the prize money to have a slightly more extravagant honeymoon. Elliot and Dot were both horror movie buffs, and had jumped at the chance to stay at a supposedly-haunted house for fun. Clary had an interest in the Gothic Victorian revival architecture of Blackthorn House, and planned to get some sketches done, while Simon, who was a waiter by day and struggling musician by night, had just tagged along for the heck of it. Magnus was relatively quiet, but Alec had the feeling that he was people-watching, and he suspected that Magnus' next book might have characters that reminded him of the little group gathered here today.

Alec wondered how he would feel if he recognised himself in Magnus' next book. He'd probably be that one character that got brutally murdered at the end, just when he thought he was safe. 

Alec was surprised to find that he actually really liked everybody, and was glad that the show wasn't going to pit them against each other. They were nice people, well-adjusted, and seemed to be taking their participation on the show as a bit of spooky fun, what with Halloween being around the corner, with the additional perk of the prize money at the end of it. The prospect of three days in this place didn't seem so bad after all, and the butterflies in Alec's stomach began to settle. 

"So... I hope this isn't a sensitive question, but you said that you were siblings, and Jace looks nothing like the two of you," Simon said.  

"I'm adopted. My parents died when I was a baby," Jace explained. 

"Oh no, I'm so sorry," Dot said sympathetically. 

"Nah, it's fine. I've been a Lightwood since I could talk," Jace said with a shrug. 

"The worst thing to ever happen to our family," Alec said snidely. 

"Awww. I know you love me," Jace said, making kissy faces at Alec.  

"Team green - we're going to film you guys going into your room now," one of the production assistants came over to say.

"Right," Alec said, scrambling to his feet, the butterflies in his stomach now flapping their wings again in full force and creating mini-hurricanes all the way down to his toes. He'd almost forgotten that he was going to have to share a room with Magnus. What could possibly go wrong?

Alec tried not to pay attention to the cameraman following them up the stairs to their room, which was all the way at the top of the main building and probably right under the attic, if Blackthorn House had such a thing. He was fully expecting rattling chains, creaking overhead floorboards, and whatever else the production team had dreamt up to mess with his sleep tonight, but the joke was on them - he'd brought earplugs. The winding staircase seemed to be getting narrower as they went up, until they finally reached the fourth level, which seemed to only hold a single room. Magnus turned his key in the lock, and the heavy door swung open to reveal a bright and airy bedroom.

Alec let out a disbelieving huff. Magnus caught his eye, looking similarly skeptical, and they shared a small tentative smile, the same thought on their minds - they'd both been expecting something gloomy and creepy, not this beautiful room with a sweeping balcony just visible beyond pale gauzy curtains. Magnus held the door open for Alec, gesturing that he should go first, then surreptitiously held the door open for the poor cameraman, who seemed quite out of breath from climbing up all those stairs.

The room was huge, but even then most of the space was taken up by a gigantic four-poster bed. Alec eyed the ostentatious canopied thing warily and resisted the urge to check under the bed for some sort of machine that might start shaking the bed in the middle of the night, a la _The Exorcist_. He'd do that later, before they went to bed.

He put his bag down, conscious of the cameraman angling himself into a corner to take a wider shot of the whole room. It seemed like he was waiting for something more from them - but what? 

Magnus walked over to the monstrous wardrobe in the corner, one hand lingering on the ornate carved handle, then looked over his shoulder at Alec. It was the only place in the room big enough to hide a grown man, since the bottom of the bed was obviously too near the floor. Alec nodded, bracing himself for someone to come jumping out of the wardrobe, but when Magnus flung open the doors, the wardrobe was completely empty except for a few hangers. 

"Well, the lack of hangers in this thing is certainly pretty terrifying," Magnus observed. "There aren't enough to go around." 

"Um, I only brought jeans and t-shirts, I don't need hangers," Alec said. 

"Lucky me, then," Magnus said with a smile.  

"Ok, I think I've got enough stuff to work with. We can go back downstairs now, thanks, guys," the cameraman said, putting his camera down. 

"Could you give me five minutes? I need to use the bathroom," Magnus said. 

"Sure, take your time. I'm just going to go for a smoking break, I'll be back," their cameraman said.  

The first thing Alec did when the cameraman left the room was to quickly check under the bed for anything mechanical-looking that looked like it shouldn't be there. When he was satisfied that the bed wasn't booby-trapped, he straightened up, glanced around, and saw a white card on the nightstand. He picked it up curiously. It was typed up in a neat cursive font, and informed him that this had once been the master bedroom of Blackthorn House; and that in 1907, the wife of the director of the mental asylum had been so horrified by the ongoings in the asylum that she had jumped off the balcony to her death. 

Alec snorted, and put the card back where he'd found it. He pulled open the nightstand drawer and found two heavy-duty flashlights, as well as a bottle of lube and a string of condoms. 

"Wow. Real subtle," he muttered, then closed the drawer firmly. His gaze lighted on the card on the nightstand again. 

Jaws clenched, Alec walked determinedly towards the balcony and pulled aside the curtains, then pushed open the French windows that led out to the balcony. It was windy out here and a bit chilly, but the view of the grounds was amazing. He rested one hand on the solid concrete balustrade and squinted into the distance, using the other hand to shield his eyes from the light of the setting sun. From where he was standing, the two wings of Blackthorn House seemed to close in on the sizeable courtyard stretched out in front of him, the shadow of the West wing shrouding the entire space in darkness. There was a large structure made out of cast iron and dirty glass panels to his left, probably the pool house, and that was linked to a small greenhouse by a covered walkway. Behind that there seemed to be some sort of field, with a few straggling trees even beyond that, though still within the high walls of the Blackthorn estate.

Then Alec heard a female voice in his ear; soft and coaxing, barely more than a whisper but clear as a bell, as if whoever was speaking was standing right behind him - 

" _Jump_."

 

 

 


	3. Day One, 6PM

 

 

Alec turned around so fast the world spun a little. Of course there was nobody behind him waiting to push him over the balustrade, but Alec quickly stepped away from the railing of the balcony anyway and walked back into the bedroom. All the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up and his heart was beating so fast that he could hear his heartbeat in his own ears, but Alec Lightwood did not believe in ghosts, god-fucking-damnit, even if he was shivering uncontrollably now. 

It was just the power of suggestion. That card on the nightstand, the atmosphere of the whole place, the fact that Alec had slept poorly the night before stressing out about being on this show, and the stress of meeting new people - heck, even the exploding bulb downstairs. The room felt very much colder now than it had been before, but it _was_ cold outside, and Alec had left the French windows wide open.  

He closed the windows, then the curtains for good measure, leaning against the wall near the door of the en suite bathroom, and taking comfort in the very human sounds of taps running and Magnus humming softly to himself. Maybe he'd underestimated the show's production team. He'd been expecting jump scares and cheap tricks, but perhaps they were smarter than he'd given them credit for, and were going for insidious psychological warfare.  

Well, he wasn't going to let them get the better of him. This was just an old house that had seen some strange deaths, but people died all the time. There was no such thing as ghosts. 

Alec took a deep breath, and went to pull open the curtains again, and tried not to jump when the bathroom door opened suddenly.

"Is it just me, or is it suddenly a lot colder in here?" Magnus asked, frowning. 

"I went out to the balcony just now, I must have let the chill in."

Magnus glanced at the balcony, then back at Alec. "Alexander, are you ok?" 

"Yup. I'm fine," Alec said brusquely, stuffing his hands into his jean's pockets. 

Magnus looked like he wanted to say something more, but just then their cameraman popped his head into the room. 

"Hey guys, sorry about the delay," he said, then glanced at the open curtains, and his eyes widened. For one wild moment Alec wondered if he'd seen something that Alec couldn't see, or if the production company had actually gone the extra mile in their elaborate prank and hired actors as crew members. "Oh fuck, it's sunset. Shit, I've still got the two teams in the West wing to film. Fuck!"

"If you're worried about the lack of natural light, you could have the two teams heading off to their rooms together to save some time. It would make perfect sense," Magnus suggested, brows furrowed in concern at the guy's agitation. 

"Yeah, I could sell that to the producer. I mean, nobody wants to hang around here longer than they have to," the cameraman said distractedly. "Let's go, guys."

"Sure," Alec said. As they left the room, he resisted the temptation to take one last look behind him at the empty balcony.   

When they were back downstairs, surrounded by people again, Alec found it a lot easier to put the incident on the balcony behind him. Magnus was called away to do his "confessional" first, and Simon came up to talk to him and Jace. 

"Um, guys. I just wanted to assure you that I will treat your sister with the utmost respect, and you don't have anything to worry from me-" Simon began nervously. 

Jace held up a hand to cut him off. "Hey, we're not worried."

Simon's shoulders sagged in relief. "Thanks for trusting me, guys." 

"No - we're not worried, because if you try any funny business, Izzy will kick your ass into next week," Alec corrected him.  

"That's totally cool," Simon said with a laugh, then turned to Jace, suddenly serious. "I feel honour-bound to warn you that Clary will kill you if you try anything, and I _will_  be helping her hide the body."

"Fair enough," Jace replied with a grin. 

"Is nobody is going to threaten me on Alexander's behalf? That seems unfair," Magnus commented as he rejoined the group.  

"Nope. Trust me, he's not going to complain if you hit on him," Jace quipped, and Alec glared at him.  

He was saved from having to deal with Magnus' reaction when he was called away to film his segment, but he was a lot less thankful about the crew's timing when Camille swept in with her little entourage of assistants and crew, and went straight for Magnus. She didn't bother trying to keep her voice down, so Alec heard her loud and clear even from across the huge foyer.

"If it doesn't work out with pretty boy over there..." She smirked at Alec, then offered a card that she was holding between two perfectly manicured fingers to Magnus. "...you know how to find me." 

Alec bristled. What the hell? She was making a move on his - well, his teammate. It wasn't like he and Magnus were anything more, and he didn't even know if Magnus was interested in him. He saw Magnus accept the card with a polite smile, and deflated further. 

The production assistant shoved him into a nook under the stairs, which was getting seriously overcrowded from the crew, equipment, and several suits of armour. Another crew member refreshed his face with a light layer of make-up, and then Alec found himself staring into a camera lens that was right in his face. He blinked at the light and boom mic and the expectant faces of the crew.

"Uh... So what do you want me to say?" he asked. All he could think of was the voice on the balcony, and he wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of knowing that they'd got to him.  

"Well, tell us more about your teammate. How it felt when you knew that you were going to have to pair up with him."

Alec floundered, once again wrong-footed by the show's weird dual agenda. "You want me to talk about Magnus?"  

"Well, duh. I mean, everybody on this show is so painfully good-looking that it's unfair, but you've only just met and the way the two of you look at each other when the other isn't looking - that's quality television right there," the producer said with a grin. "Besides, Magnus is a minor celebrity. We're probably going to feature the both of you pretty heavily in the promos, to be honest."

"Great," Alec sighed, and only remembered at the last moment not to run his hand over his face so that he wouldn't have to redo his make-up again. 

They were done with everything but the last shot before 7pm, and the crew looked visibly relieved as they packed up the equipment and got ready to leave Blackthorn House. The last one through the door was the director, looking nervously around as the rest of the crew got further and further out of sight through the overgrown front garden.

"Ok, I need you guys to crowd at the main door and look out towards the gate until the gates are chained and locked, and then you guys are on your own," the director said, already halfway out of the door in his eagerness to be out of the building. He ran down the steps so quickly that he nearly tripped on the bottom step, then looked back at them. 

"Good luck. I'll be keeping you in my prayers," he told them sincerely, and jogged away, although it seemed like he was trying not to break into a full-out sprint. 

"What the fuck was that about?" Jace wondered as they watched the crew putting the chains and padlock on the gate. 

"Hey, did anyone else feel like the crew was kind of jumpy?" Simon asked. 

"The camera guy who was following us to our rooms almost crapped his pants when I accidentally knocked something over when his back was turned," Edward said. 

"They're trying to mess with us, make us nervous," Izzy said dismissively.  

"Well, I'd say all the crew members missed out on a career in acting," Milo said. He tried to close the main door and it seemed to swing forward with more force than he'd used, causing it to slam shut with a deafening bang. "Woah. They must've rigged this door," he said with a laugh. 

"It's almost seven - shall we all head over to the dining room?" Dot suggested.  

As they trooped down the dark hallway from the foyer, Alec felt someone tap his shoulder and startled - but it was just Magnus.  

"Just so you know, I think there's a hidden camera in the clock in our room," Magnus told him in a low voice.  

"Really? How can you tell?"

"Strange place to put a clock, since you would only be able to see the clock face from an odd angle, but a camera hidden behind it would have a good view of almost the entire room. Besides, it doesn't quite match the rest of the room's decor. I could be wrong, of course."

"Wow. Ok," Alec said, impressed. "I wouldn't have thought to work it out like that." 

"Well, you learn really weird things when you're a writer, and crime and mystery are kind of my area of expertise," Magnus said with a slight quirk at the corner of his mouth. "I suspect that there might be another camera hidden somewhere in the curtains around the bed, given the type of questions they asked me during the confessional." 

Alec nodded. "They put lube and condoms in the nightstand drawer," he told Magnus, and Magnus laughed brightly.  

"How thoughtful of them to facilitate all the safe, responsible sex we're going to have while being filmed for the show," he joked, or at least Alec thought he was joking. 

Dinner was a lighthearted affair, everyone joking and laughing over the way the logo of the sponsor had been plastered all over the packaging of their food supplies, right down to the plastic utensils that had been provided. Magnus pointed out one of the possible hidden cameras in the dining room, and Jace, Milo, and Simon went out of their way to angle every single cup and microwavable container on the table so that their logos would be clearly visible to the camera.  

While they were waiting for the texts from the producers to come in, talk around the table turned to the cards that were apparently in every single room, detailing the tragedies that had befallen the original occupants of the room.  

"We got Annabel Blackthorn's old room. You know, the one who committed suicide with her boyfriend," Jace said. "But apparently they hanged themselves from a willow tree somewhere on the grounds." 

"We got the twins' old nursery, but of course they drowned in the swimming pool," Izzy said.  

"What was ours? Did you see the card?" Magnus asked Alec. 

Alec debated for a moment whether or not to tell him, then decided that it would probably be better if Magnus knew what he was up against. "We have the master bedroom. Belonged to old Mr Blackthorn as well, I guess, but card only said that the asylum director's wife jumped off the balcony."

"Oh, then yours might be the only one where a death actually occurred in the room," Dot said musingly. "The West wing was where most of the worst inmates were imprisoned, but they all died in the infirmary or operating theatres. We got the old room of someone who used to torture his victims by burying them alive." 

"Ours was once the cell of an inmate who used to behead his victims or give them - well, I don't know what a 'Colombian necktie' is, but I'm guessing it's something gruesome," Edward said. 

"It means he used to slash their throats and pull their tongues out through the wound in their throats," Dot explained serenely. Everybody stared at Dot, while her husband hid his smile in his cup.  

"What the fuck?! Why would you know something like that?" Simon yelped. 

"What? I told you guys I was a horror fan. Nothing fazes me," Dot said, laughing at the expressions of everybody around the table. 

"It's always the quiet ones," Magnus teased, shaking his head. 

The five phones chimed, not quite in sync, the discordant ringtone overlapping slightly in a way that grated on Alec's nerves. Everybody got up to crowd around the mantlepiece, trying to figure out what the item they'd been assigned might be.

"Ours looks like a little statue. There must be a fuck-ton of them in this place, I wouldn't even know where to look," Jace said. 

"And ours looks like a crystal ball?" Simon said, tilting his head.

"No, it's a paperweight. See the pressed flower inside?" Izzy pointed out. 

"I don't even know what ours is," Dot complained, wrinkling her nose.

Alec thought theirs looked like an inkwell, but wasn't really keen on searching through the unfamiliar house - at least not tonight. Magnus wasn't even looking at their phone, staring into space and lost in thought.

"Anybody else thinks that it might be a really bad idea to go stumbling around this place in the dark?" Clary asked, voicing exactly what was on Alec's mind. "I mean, this place is over a hundred years old. I know they've restored it, but I don't know if the lights work everywhere. Imagine breaking your ankle because you couldn't see a rotten floorboard or something." 

"And there might be secret passageways! There're always secret passageways in old houses like this one, right? We'd miss all the clues in the dark!" Simon chimed in.

"So are we all forfeiting tonight's bonus scavenger hunt then?" Dot asked, to a chorus of 'yeah's from the group.

"Not us, sorry. Ours looks like the spine of a book, so we're going to try to find the library. It should be somewhere in the main building," Edward said. 

"Yeah, I think Magnus and I passed it on the way up to our room. On the second level, maybe," Alec agreed. 

"So what are the rest of you going to do, then?" Milo asked.

"Yeah, it's not like there's a TV somewhere, where we can just chill and have a movie night," Jace said. 

"We should go sit in the foyer in a circle and tell each other ghost stories," Simon suggested. 

"Ooh, fun! Like we're back in school camp, sitting around the campfire," Izzy exclaimed, clapping her hands gleefully. 

"That's _so_ tempting," Milo agreed. "Edward and I might join you guys after we've found this book, or given up looking."

"It'll be good. Dot has some great stories up her sleeve," Elliot said with a fond smile at his wife. 

"Did you know that it's said that the spirits will be drawn to you if you start telling ghost stories? They'll gather round behind you, listening in over your shoulder - they want to make sure you're not bad-mouthing them," Dot said mischievously, and Simon made a noise somewhere between a groan and a laugh.

"Oh my god - that's it, lady, you're _on_ ," Jace exclaimed. "I'm not afraid of ghosts and you can't scare me. _Bring it_." 

"It sounds like a lot of fun and I wish I could stay, but the muse is a cruel mistress. I had an idea and I really want to write it down before it slips away from me," Magnus said regretfully.

"Magnus, that's great," Clary said enthusiastically.

"Don't celebrate too early, Biscuit, I don't know if it'll actually pan out," Magnus said. "Alexander, you don't have to come up with me. You should stay down here and enjoy yourself. I'll be fine on my own."

Alec emphatically _did not_ believe in ghosts, but leaving Magnus alone up there in the room was unthinkable. "No, the rules said that teammates must stick together, remember? I'm pretty tired anyway, it was a long drive here," he said. "I'll go up with you, I think I need an early night."  

Alec had never thought that getting ready for bed could be a harrowing experience, but then again he'd never had to sleep in a place where the plumbing hadn't been used for a decade. Everyone had assured him that the rules stated that there were no hidden cameras in the bathrooms, but he'd still checked the whole place from top to bottom, including behind the round mirror above the sink and underneath the vanity table, before shucking his clothes. It was cold, so Alec was thankful that the cheap heater, with its yellowed plastic casing looking completely at odds with the stately claw-footed porcelain bathtub and beautiful black-and-white geometric patterned floor tiles, was sort of in working order, even if it had produced an alarming high-pitched whine when he had first turned it on. But there were rust flakes swirling in the water even after Alec had let the water run for a while, and in the end Alec had given up and made do - at least the water wasn't completely brown. He'd drawn the line at brushing his teeth with that, though; he'd have to remember to grab a few bottles of water from the pantry tomorrow.    

He left the bathroom still feeling distinctly grimy. Magnus was sitting at the fancy dresser scribbling in a notebook, and Alec nearly dropped his bottles of shampoo and bodywash when Magnus turned around and looked up at Alec through a pair of black-framed glasses. Magnus had amazingly soulful eyes, but he was rocking that pair of glasses so hard that Alec couldn't remember what to do with himself, and nerd-hot wasn't even his thing. 

"They're just reading glasses," Magnus said a little self-consciously, and Alec immediately felt bereft when he removed them. 

"You look good in them," Alec told him, then wanted to kick himself, because 'good' was the understatement of the century, but  Magnus seemed pleased.  

"Thank you, I'm very glad you approve," Magnus said a little coyly. 

He was? Wait, why did Magnus care what Alec thought of them?  

"The water's kinda gross," he blurted out, out of a lack of sensible, coherent things to say.  

"Duly noted," Magnus said with a laugh. He closed his notebook, and excused himself to take his bath.  

At least the production crew had given them clean sheets and a fresh mattress, and presumably swept up the worst of the dust, Alec thought as he sat down on the bed and listened to the pipes groaning in the walls as Magnus took his bath. His eyes were drawn to the white card on the table, then inexorably towards the balcony. Gritting his teeth, Alec got up to draw the curtains, made sure that the French windows were latched shut, then crumpled up the stupid card and went to throw it in the trashbin. There was already something inside there, and Alec bent down in surprise to take a closer look - it was the card with Camille's number.  

Spirits lifted considerably, Alec sat back down on the bed, absently rubbing his palms on his thigh. Despite what he'd told Magnus, he wasn't really that tired - after all, it was only half past nine. He had a book in his backpack, but it was one of Magnus', and it felt weird to be reading it in Magnus' presence.  

In the end he gave in and got the book out. It was the fifth one in the series, and Alec had read it so many times that he knew all the plot twists by heart, but the imagery was so haunting that he couldn't help going back to it. 

He was so engrossed, he didn't look up until Magnus snorted in amusement. "Reading a book about ritual murders seems like an odd choice, considering our surroundings," he said as he towel-dried his hair.  

"It's my favourite one," Alec told him.  

Magnus smiled and ducked his head, grabbing his glasses, notebook, and pen as he moved to the bed. "At the risk of sounding egotistical, it's the one I was most proud of, too," Magnus admitted. He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry that it's been so long since I've put out a new book, but I'm afraid that some personal issues have cropped up over the past year, and I haven't really been able to get into the mood to write."  

"You don't have to apologise. I mean, you don't owe us your stories," Alec quickly assured him. He'd missed having a new _Mortlock_ book every few months, it was true, and he'd been starting to worry that his favourite author had decided to stop the series on a cliffhanger after more than a year of silence. 

"Ragnor thinks that I owe it to him to keep writing, though," Magnus said with a sad smile. He hesitated, then flipped to a fresh page on his notebook. He quickly scribbled something and handed the notebook to Alec.  

_Ragnor is my best friend, and my editor. We found out last year that he has Alzheimer's_ , Alec read in Magnus' elegant looping handwriting. 

Oh shit. 

_I'm so sorry_ , Alec wrote back. 

_I'm slowly coming to terms with it. At least it means that I will have time to say goodbye properly._  

Except that Alec knew it wasn't that simple. Magnus would have to watch his best friend waste away, forgetting pieces of his own life until he couldn't even remember how to speak or take care of himself. No wonder Magnus was finding it difficult to find the inspiration to write again. He was struck by an impulse to hug Magnus, but it seemed inappropriate since they barely knew each other, so he compromised by covering one of Magnus' hands with his own and giving it a little squeeze, and that got him a small smile from Magnus. 

They worked their way through almost half of Magnus' notebook scribbling notes to each other; Alec writing about his siblings and his work with kids with special needs, and Magnus about his friends and some funny things that he had learned from talking to police detectives and reading up on real crimes while doing research for his books. It was only when Alec accidentally knocked his novel off the bed that they realised that it was already past 3am.

"Shit, we've used up so much of your notebook," Alec said. 

"It's alright, I have two more in my bag," Magnus said with a shrug, then leaned forward and dropped his voice. "That was probably the most boring footage they've ever gotten," Magnus said, and Alec grinned. 

Getting ready for bed was a little less daunting and awkward than Alec had expected. They were adults, not giggling teenagers, and the bed was definitely big enough for the both of them. It was just a place to sleep, that's all. Alec picked the side of the bed closest to the balcony out of sheer stubbornness. 

"By the way, I've been told that I snore - er, by my siblings. So I'm sorry if I keep you up," Alec said. 

Magnus grinned and triumphantly held up a pair of earplugs. "I'm all prepared. I actually brought these in case the production team decided to play tricks on us in our sleep." 

"Well... I guess we had the same idea." Alec held up his own earplugs for Magnus to see, and Magnus laughed.   

Alec was expecting to be teased by his siblings when he and Magnus went down to the dining room for breakfast at 11 o'clock, but to his surprise Dot and her husband were the only ones there, though Alec couldn't help thinking that Dot looked like she hadn't slept a wink. The rest started trickling in just before noon, yawning and bleary-eyed, and gratefully pounced on the coffee. 

"What time did you guys go to bed?" Alec asked. 

"Five? Six? I don't know," Simon said, stifling a yawn. 

"Sounds like quite a night," Magnus said with a laugh. "Did anything exciting happen?" 

"Mmm, you could say so," Izzy said, grinning mischievously.

Jace groaned and buried his head in his hands. "You're never going to let me live it down, are you?" 

Izzy ignored Jace and continued, "Simon and I were just getting ready for bed, when we heard a bloodcurdling scream coming from Clary and Jace's end of the East wing. So we ran all the way to their room, and found that someone had planted a plastic skeleton in the wardrobe, and Jace here-"  

Jace attempted to clap a hand over her mouth, and she dodged him, laughing. "Yes, yes, the stupid thing fell on me and I started screaming my head off like a girl," Jace said. 

" _I_ didn't scream," Clary observed haughtily. 

"Oh, fuck - ok, fine, I started screaming like a... something that screams very loudly. Help me out here, writer guy," Jace said, looking towards Magnus. 

Magnus pretended to consider this very seriously. "A wimp?" 

Everybody at the table laughed, and Jace scowled at Magnus. "Hey, now. You ought to be nicer to me, I could be your man on the inside to help you get a date with my brother, you know." 

"As if Magnus needs any help from you," Izzy said with a snort. 

Alec told himself he was a grown up, and grown ups didn't throw empty paper cups at their annoying siblings. 

"Anyway, it's all Dot's fault. She told some _really_ fucked-up stories last night," Jace insisted.  

Dot gave him a wane smile but didn't reply, gingerly sipping her tea. Her husband was rubbing one shoulder soothingly, and looked rather grim as well. 

"Are you alright?" Magnus asked. 

"Sure, yeah. Maybe I'm too old for late nights," Dot said with a forced laugh. "I think I'm just going to back to my room to lie down." 

The girls went to give Dot a hug, and insisted that she brought some packets of biscuits and bottles of water from the pantry back upstairs in case she didn't feel well enough to come down for lunch. 

"Maybe she's pregnant. I remember Mum used to get all green in the face in the mornings when she was expecting Max," Jace said, and Izzy smacked his arm with a reminder of " _Cameras_."

"Hey, where are Edward and Milo? They didn't come down to join us for the ghost stories in the end, but I don't see their item on the mantlepiece either," Clary said. 

"They're newlyweds. I wouldn't go near their end of the West wing if I were you," Jace said, stretching out until his back popped. "What shall we do today? I considered just going back to bed, but it seems dumb to do that when we've got a whole house to explore. Would be nice to have a chance at that $10,000 from the scavenger hunt tonight." 

"I vote for exploring!" Simon said, and the girls nodded in agreement. 

"Sure, sounds like fun," Magnus replied, glancing at Alec, who also nodded. 

Jace stifled another yawn. "Alright, exploring it is. Blackthorn House, here we come."

 

 


	4. Day Two, 12.30PM

 

 

Watching Alec bicker with his siblings about whether they should go back to their rooms for their flashlights, Magnus reflected that this was definitely not what Ragnor had been expecting when he'd put Clary up to signing Magnus up for the show so that Magnus would stop moping around the house. Ragnor would probably disapprove on the grounds that Alec was a fan, and he worried incessantly that people tried to hook up with Magnus only because he was a _New York Times_ best-selling author - which Magnus frankly found a little bit insulting.

He had woken up leaning against Alec's broad back this morning, their shared body heat deliciously addictive in the freezing room. The room must have gotten stuffy at some point in the night, enough for Alec to get up and open the curtains and French windows, since Magnus had distinctly remembered that they had been closed before they went to bed. It had taken him all his self-discipline to get out of bed and close the windows before they both caught a cold, and then Alec had unfortunately woken up.

But even though nothing overtly sexual had happened between them, Magnus had felt the tension like a line pulled taut between them when they'd gone down for breakfast - not a bad kind of tension, more like a sort of anticipation. Magnus was a romantic at heart, but even he didn't believe in love at first sight. It took time to know someone, to love someone. What he did believe in, however, was _moments_ \- that instance when someone saw through all the bullshit you put up as a front and glimpsed the truth of who you were, then offered you a glimpse of who they really were in return. Last night had been a moment like that, when Alec had reached out for Magnus' hand - and Magnus only knew that you didn't let something like that go. 

Much to his horror, however, Magnus thought his flirting muscles might be woefully out of shape, if the persistent confused expression on Alec's face was anything to go by. They only had two more nights in this place; Magnus would have to step up his game if he wanted to make an impression before the show was over. 

In the end Alec won the argument with his siblings, probably by virtue of those bossy big-brotherly vibes, and the six of them went back to their rooms to get their flashlights before meeting at the foyer. They'd decided to go through the main building first, then the East wing and the rest of the estate, before finally working their way back to the West wing where the other two teams were located so they could all go down to the dining room together. 

The first level of the main building proved to be pretty unremarkable. There was the foyer, dining room to the left of it and a kitchen full of rusty knives and tarnished pots, and musty servants quarters. The most interesting room was probably a huge ballroom with a polished dark marble floor and wall-to-wall mirrors, which might have been used for charity galas when the place had been an asylum. Some of the mirrors had cracked or shattered completely, but even the ones that were intact were blackened around the edges or had scattered black spots from where the damp had gotten into the backing. The mirrors were cloudy with dirt, and some were warped in a way that made it hard to count how many people were actually reflected in them. 

"I'm counting seven, I swear!" Jace insisted.

"You're just trying to get back at us for laughing at you over the plastic skeleton," Izzy scoffed.

"No, I'm not! I'm the only blonde here, but there's another light-haired blob over there, like a chick with long hair. Look, I swear it's getting nearer, it's right behind Simon now-" 

"Are you talking about yourself, asshole?" Simon said, walking towards Jace and slinging one arm around his shoulders. "If you wanted me to come over to you, you could have just said so."

Magnus thought he could see how Jace might have thought there was another person there, but it wasn't there anymore when they started to file out of the ballroom, so it was probably just a trick of the light. The screech of the door dragging against the floor when Alec closed it behind him echoed strangely in the empty ballroom, sounding almost like a scream.  

 

They decided not to go to the basement so that they wouldn't accidentally uncover the props and spoil the production team's fun, and went upstairs instead. The second level held a large trophy room filled with the mounted heads and stuffed bodies of exotic dead animals (Magnus was sure the dozens of staring glassy eyes had done wonders for the mental health of the inmates) and a smoking den. The room that Alec had assumed was the library was in fact the office or study - and Alec only just managed to heroically rescue Jace from being drenched by a bucket of fake blood that had been wedged on top of the door. 

"What the fuck?" Jace exclaimed, quickly backing away from the spreading pool of viscous fake blood seeping through the gaps in the ancient wood where the lacquer had worn away.

The cheap plastic pail rocked back and forth on the uneven floor. Izzy stepped around the red puddle on the floor and peered inside.

"Well, I think I know why they booby-trapped this room," she said.

All the items that had been on their bonus scavenger hunt last night were right here - the paperweight, statue, inkwell, and presumably the items that the other two teams had been supposed to find. 

"Are these guys dumb or what? I thought the point of making us play this bonus game was to tempt us to wander around alone, but putting all the items in the same room kind of defeats that purpose, doesn't it?" Jace said.

"Maybe they were going easy on us for the first night," Clary suggested diplomatically.  

"I think I've been in school carnival haunted houses with more imagination," Jace muttered.   

 

The third floor only held bedrooms, so they quickly moved on to Magnus and Alec's room on the fourth floor to gush over the view from the balcony, even though Magnus couldn't help feeling that Alec seemed very nervous to have all of them in their room. Then there was just the attic left - small, dusty, and stacked high with extra furniture covered with white sheets, nothing that really held their interest - so they decided to head over to the East wing. 

The East and West wings were both accessible from the second level of the main building. The West wing had held the cells for the inmates, but it looked like the East wing had been the lodgings and recreational wing for the staff and their families, and had been left intact by the hotel developer. The first room they came across was a parlour or games room with boxes of chess and the like still on the shelves.

"Alexander, do you play?" Magnus asked, holding up a set of beautifully carved wooden pieces. 

"Yeah, I guess," Alec said with a shrug. 

"Oh, don't be so modest, Alec. My brother was on the school's chess team," Izzy supplied helpfully.

"Iz, that's not a cool club to be from," Jace said in an undertone.

"Oh, I disagree. Chess can be very stimulating. What's your opening move?" Magnus asked Alec.

"Um... Sicilian Defence." 

"Oh, good choice, that's a really _flexible_ opening," Magnus said cheekily, and Jace choked.

Alec frowned at his brother's reaction, then seemed to catch on. "Are we still talking about chess?" he asked uncertainly, slight colour rising in his cheeks but determinedly holding Magnus' gaze. 

Simon suddenly looked up from the box he'd been examining. "Guys, do you hear something?"

 

They followed the sound of the music down the hallway. Magnus didn't recognise the tune, but it was quite repetitive - maybe some sort of lullaby or nursery rhyme, a single bare line of melody being picked out jerkily on a piano that was in desperate need of a tuning. It was coming from the room right at the end of the East wing - and the moment Magnus' fingertips touched the handle of the door, the music stopped abruptly. He glanced back at his companions, then pushed the door open, ready to step back in case the music had been intended to lure them into another trap, but the door swung open with no sign of plastic skeletons or buckets of blood. Instead, there was a piano, a fireplace, and a few chairs along the walls, presumably for the audience.

"I guess this is the music room," Simon said. "Pretty tiny, huh?"

"Hey, check this out," Jace said, peering at the collection of picture frames on the mantlepiece. The production crew had photoshopped all of them - badly - into a bunch of old photos, although Magnus had to admit that he found it a little unsettling that they had defaced the photos of only Edward and Milo, scratching out their eyes.

They had a bit of fun with the old piano - Simon played a bit of Zeppelin's _Stairway to Heaven_ on it, and Jace wow-ed them all with his best rendition of _Twinkle Twinkle Little Star_ , while Magnus tried to figure out how they had rigged the music to stop playing when they got near. 

Alec moved to join him. "What are you looking for? Wires?"

"I'm thinking infra-red - like those door chimes, you know?" 

"Right." Alec cleared his throat. "Magnus. Back in the games room. I-" 

Magnus turned to look at Alec, wondering if he had misread Alec's interest and this was a rejection - which might make things a little bit awkward, considering they had to share a bed for two more nights.

Alec glanced around for cameras before saying. "Magnus, why would someone like you want to... play chess with someone like me?"  

Magnus looked at Alec in surprise. Why wouldn't anybody jump at a chance to be with someone like Alec? Magnus wished he'd thought to bring his notebook, just so he could tell Alec exactly how much of a sucker he was for pretty eyes and a kind heart. But he didn't get a chance to even try to explain himself, because Jace barrelled over, dragging his brother out of the room.  

"C'mon, it's already past three o'clock and there's still plenty to explore!" he declared. 

  

Downstairs, they found a beautiful sunlit room, decorated in a style that didn't match the rest of the house, which Clary said was an architectural style called Rocaille. The embroidered brocade wallpaper with its curling vines and delicate flowers was faded but still resplendent, and there was real gold leaf peeling off the intricate carvings on the furniture. Clary was very excited by the discovery and insisted on staying to make sketches of the room, so she and Jace stayed while the rest moved on to the next room, which turned out to be the library. 

Most of the books here were medical books and novels from after the turn of the century, which made Magnus think that these were from the House's asylum days rather than when the Blackthorns had lived here - which made sense, because he recalled Clary saying that there had been a fire. The four of them split up to peruse the dusty shelves, Magnus moved to stand next to Alec. 

"You were on the chess team. If we play a game, maybe you're the one who has to go easy on me," Magnus told him quietly. 

Alec seemed to consider this. "Ok, point taken," Alec said. "I suppose the only way to find out if we're equally matched is to play." 

Magnus smiled at Alec, feeling lighter and more optimistic about the future than he'd felt in a long time; Alec must have seen it in his expression, and a succession of emotions flashed across Alec's face, settling on a sort of wonder. Alec was still looking at him, transfixed, and Magnus felt like he should have more to say but for once couldn't seem to find the right words - when a hand landed on Alec's shoulder, and he jumped.

"Do either of you understand French?" Simon asked, holding up a black leather-bound book. 

There were no words on the cover - just a picture branded into the leather, of a dragon holding a black hen, and Magnus recognised the book instantly. He held out a hand for it and flipped to the title page, just to be sure.

" _Le Dragon Rouge, ou l'art de commander les Esprits Célestes, Aériens, Terrestres, Infernaux_ ," Magnus read aloud, then translated, "The Red Dragon, or the art of controlling the celestial, aerial, terrestrial, and infernal spirits."

"Wait, I've heard of this book," Alec said suddenly. "You mentioned it in your novel, the one I was reading last night. It's the spellbook the cultists were using to try to summon the Devil."

"I did," Magnus agreed, carefully skimming through the fragile pages. He was no expert on vintage books, but this seemed like the real deal.

"Why would a mental asylum have a book on summoning the Devil?" Izzy asked.

"Maybe it belonged to the Blackthorns," Simon said.

"But there was a fire, wasn't there?" Alec said. "I know I saw it in the notes our younger brother printed out for us, and the fire started in the library." 

"Funny you should mention that. When I was doing my research, I read that the Church thought that the book was so evil, they tried to destroy it, but found it indestructible - even by fire," Magnus said.

"Holy shit," Simon said in a hushed voice. "Did we find an actual cursed object?"

Magnus shrugged. "If you believe in this sort of thing."

"I suppose this means that the Blackthorns did," Alec said with a frown. 

Magnus looked around the room with more interest now, taking in the polished wooden floor and the nondescript reading tables and chairs. The dimensions of the room did seem a little strange, now that he thought of it - perhaps something had gone wrong when they had rebuilt the place after the fire, but it didn't really match his mental image of the floor upstairs. This room seemed much narrower than the games room, which should have been directly above them, and the book shelves weren't nearly deep enough to account for the few missing feet.

"I think there might be something behind this shelf," he said, pointing it out.

"A secret passageway? Please say there's a secret passageway," Simon yelped, practically vibrating with excitement. "Oh! You know how in books and movies, the lever that reveals the secret entrance is always disguised as a book on the shelf?" 

The four of them exchanged a look and grinned.

"The owner of this house is going to regret offering this place for the show after this," Izzy said with a laugh as they all began pulling books off the shelves. 

But nothing happened even after they'd pulled all the books off the shelves, and no amount of pulling or shoving could get the shelf to budge from its spot against the wall. Magnus tapped the back of the shelf; it was definitely hollow, though. 

"Maybe this?" Izzy said, eyeing a tasselled bell pull in the wall that should have been connected to a bell in the servants' quarters. She gave it a sharp tug, and there was an audible click from the shelf. This time they managed to move it aside easily, revealing a narrow flight of stairs leading down into unknown darkness.

"Aren't we glad now that someone insisted that we brought flashlights?" Magnus said brightly, and was rewarded with a lopsided grin from Alec. 

The stairs were so narrow that they all had to walk down sideways, like crabs. Alec led the way, followed by Izzy and Simon, and Magnus brought up the rear. The walls on either side were cold and dry, and Magnus was only touching them with the tips of his fingers for balance as he carefully inched down the steep steps, but the chill from the stone seemed to sink deep into his bones. The lights from their flashlights, too stark against the darkness that surrounded them, bounced around like strobe lights as they made their way down in stops and starts. Simon glanced behind him over Magnus' shoulder, then stopped so suddenly that Magnus almost bumped into him.

He squinted. "Is that Clary and Jace?"

Magnus looked up at the rectangle of dim light which marked the entrance to the secret passageway; there were two figures silhouetted at the top of the stairs.

"Hey guys, come on down!" Simon called out. The figures didn't answer, but began to walk down the stairs with slow, measured steps. 

"Flashlights, Jace!" Alec reminded his brother exasperatedly from a little further down, but was roundly ignored. 

They all continued downwards until the stairs finally ended. Magnus figured that they had to be at least as far down as the basement level, possibly even next to the mysterious room with the red door that they had been told not to enter. 

"What is this place?" Izzy said, their lights illuminating the room in flashes of images - a cluttered table, bare walls, shelves of glass jars against the walls. Every step they took disturbed the thick layer of dust and grime all around, and Magnus could feel it settling everywhere on his face and hands, making him itch.

"Ew, gross," Simon muttered, examining the stuff in the jars. "I think I just found a jar of dead spiders." 

Izzy, Magnus, and Alec crowded around the table. There were ritual blades and bowls covered with a fine layer of grime and cobwebs, but what really caught their attention was several journals, haphazardly swept to one side. They each flipped one open curiously - Magnus and Alec's seemed to mostly contain scribbled arcane symbols and odd sketches of mutilated animals, but Izzy's turned out to be a proper journal.

"I think this is old Mr Blackthorn's journal. 'Today I called Him into the circle, but he said that if I wanted to bring back my dearest Eliza, I would have to give up someone of her blood...'" Izzy read aloud, then trailed off as she concentrated on finishing the page, and then next, and the next, her frown growing deeper and deeper. She flung the book down and wiped her hand on her jeans, as if just touching the book had made her feel sick. "So, according to this journal, he murdered his twin children as human sacrifices to try to bring his wife back from the dead. But it wasn't enough, so he killed the eldest one too, then her boyfriend..."

"Then himself?" Simon asked uncertainly.

"Maybe he was trying to destroy the book, but it didn't work," Magnus suggested.

"I suppose we will never know for sure," Izzy said, then hugged her arms around herself. "Can we go now?"

Alec put his arms around her and gave her a squeeze. "Sure. Wait - where are Jace and Clary? They should have reached the bottom of the stairs by now." 

The four of them made their way back to the foot of the staircase, but there was nobody coming down the steps. "Maybe they changed their minds and went back up," Izzy said.

The four of them made their way back up the stairs to the library just in time to see Jace and Clary coming in through the door.

"There you are! What the fuck happened to you guys?" Jace demanded, taking in their grimy clothes, faces, and hands.

"Huh? Weren't you guys right behind us? We saw you come down after us," Simon said in confusion.

"No, we've only just walked in here," Clary said in surprise, then glanced behind them and gasped. "Did you guys find a secret passageway?"

"...Shit. You guys are actually serious," Simon said, and Magnus noticed that he was fidgeting with the Star of David medallion that he knew Simon wore around his neck under his shirt. Simon looked around at the other three who had gone into the secret room with him. "Did the rest of you see them?" 

"I didn't actually see anything, just heard you calling out to them," Alec admitted.

"Me neither," Izzy said.

"I did. I saw two figures, but I didn't really see their faces," Magnus said, mind whirling as he tried to recall the two shadowy figures more clearly - they had looked remarkably like Jace and Clary in built, and the smaller of the two had had bright red hair like Clary, visible even with the light behind them.

He glanced back at the yawning black hole behind the book shelf, and his skin crawled. It had been so dark in the room, and they had been very distracted by all the things they'd found. The two strangers could have been right there beside them, and they wouldn't even have noticed. 

"Oh, thank god, I could hug you right now. If I was the only one who saw them I'd've thought I was losing my mind," Simon said in a rush.

"Could have been someone from the production team, or actors they hired to scare us," Izzy suggested. 

Alec's face seemed to have gone a shade paler, but there was a stubborn set to his jaw. "Let's move the shelf back and go. We have less than two hours to sunset, and there's still the grounds and the West wing to cover." 

Everyone was a lot quieter as they continued their exploration of the grounds. The field next to the East wing and just behind the greenhouse turned out to be a small cemetery, and none of them were inclined to take a closer look after the incident in the library. The plants in the greenhouse had been strangled by weeds decades ago, and anyway everything was dreary and brown in late autumn - even the unkempt grass in the courtyard was so dead it was almost grey.

They walked along the covered walkway to the pool house, dead leaves crunching under their feet. Jace and Magnus had to shoulder the wooden door open forcibly, the wood having been exposed to the elements for so long that it had swollen beyond the confines of its frame. 

The pool itself was in quite a state as well. It was quite a big pool and the water was deep, at least up to Magnus' chest. One side of the pool ended in rounded steps spilling into the pool in a cascade of dark blue tiles. The previous developer had even put in modern light fixtures at the bottom of the pool. But while the production team had probably filled in the water recently, they had neglected to clean the pool before doing so - the tiles might have been blue but were now slimy green, and of course the water here was tinged brown with rust like the water they'd all had to bathe in last night. 

What caught Magnus' eye, however, was the glint of four perfect silver circles of light resting somewhere in the muck. He leaned over the pool for a closer look - the coins caught the evening light even through the grimy glass panels in the roof, which meant that they hadn't been in there long.

"Who wants to bet that one of the teams is going to be assigned fishing out those coins for their scavenger hunt?" he said wryly. 

"Well, I hope it's not us, because I can't swim," Simon said nervously, taking off his glasses to clean the dusty lens on the edge of his t-shirt and only succeeded in smudging them up even more. Clary wordlessly took them from him, cleaning them on her own shirt before handing them back.  

"Come on, let's keep moving," Alec said, shoulders tense as he glanced at his watch again.

The tension amongst the group was palpable now, and if possible going into the West wing only made it worse. They could all see the sun beginning to set through the windows, and although most of the rooms had since been converted into perfectly bland-looking bedrooms, everyone knew that these had once been cells, operating theatres, and experiment rooms, where horrific things had been done to other human beings in the name of science. The wallpaper here was obviously newer, every room looked exactly the same, and Magnus had the oddest feeling that they were walking down the same hallway over and over again. There was a small chapel on the second floor, where someone had unfortunately decided to put green glass in all the windows so that it was the least comforting spiritual sanctuary Magnus had ever seen, and then they were finally walking up to the third floor where the other two teams' rooms were. 

Magnus hoped Dot was feeling better - he could do with a dose of her devil-may-care attitude and flippant skepticism of the supernatural right now.

Except that her door was ajar, and so was the door of the room occupied by Edward and Milo. The girls exchanged a look and went into Dot's room immediately, Simon and Jace hovering outside in case it wasn't a good time for Dot but still close enough to rush in if they were needed, while Alec and Magnus walked quickly to the other room right at the end of the floor.

"Edward? Milo?" Magnus called out, rapping his knuckles on the door before pushing it open all the way.

The room was empty, and the bed didn't even look like it'd been slept in. Magnus checked the wardrobe and found their bags inside, still firmly shut and unpacked. There was no sign of a struggle or foul play, nothing out of the ordinary - except that it seemed that the occupants had never returned to the room after dinner.  

The other four were waiting outside for them; Alec shook his head in response to the question on all of their faces.  

"Dot and Elliot are gone as well, and they took their bags too," Izzy said. 

Jace huffed out a breath. "Fuck. Looks like they've forfeited." 

"Edward and Milo's bags are still inside though," Magnus told them. 

"Then maybe they saw something that made them want to leave without even taking their things," Simon muttered.  

A heavy silence fell over the six of them. Simon was definitely spooked, Izzy was still trying to wrap her head around what she'd read in the journal, and Alec was keeping something to himself. But like the mysteries Magnus made his living writing, there had to be a logical explanation. 

Clary put on a cheery smile, obviously trying to lift everyone's spirits. "Hey, it's seven. I'm starving! Let's go down to the dining room to see what they've planned for the scavenger hunt tonight."

  

 

 

 


	5. Day Two, 7.30PM

 

 

It was a wonder how much difference a full stomach and familiar surroundings could make. Magnus would have to try to remember this in future - blood sugar made all the difference between paranoia and a clear head. He was also feeling a lot more like himself after they'd all washed off the worst of the grime from their hands and faces in the industrial-sized kitchen sinks before dinner, and that had helped lift his mood considerably. In the familiar warm yellow lights of the dining room, it seemed absurd to believe that the strange things that had happened during the exploration of the rest of the House and the grounds had a supernatural explanation. After all, the point of the show was to scare them - and it seemed that some methods had just been a bit more imaginative than others.   

"Dot really didn't look well this morning. Maybe they went home because she was sick," Izzy said reasonably. 

"I'm sure that was it, Dot would never be frightened of anything they came up with! I do wish she'd said goodbye before she left, but we were all over the place today," Clary agreed. 

"But what about Edward and Milo? They didn't even take their bags," Simon said. "Do you think we should go out there and look for them, make sure they're not hurt or lost?" 

"We've basically explored the entire estate today and we didn't see them," Jace pointed out. "Besides, there are live feed cameras everywhere." 

"Right, I'd forgotten about the cameras," Simon said, letting out a sigh of relief. "If the production team had seen anything weird or seen anybody in danger, they'd have stopped the whole show, right?" 

Magnus privately thought that Simon had too much faith in the goodness of human nature, and not much understanding of just how far a TV crew would let things go on for the sake of entertaining footage, but decided not to comment. 

"You really got me, guys. Good job," Simon said with a finger-gun pointed in the direction of one of the hidden cameras, then turned to Izzy and said, "Um, sorry you got such a wuss for a partner."

"If you were a wuss, you wouldn't have suggested going out in the dark to look for Edward and Milo. I think you're very brave," Izzy told him with a wink and a smile, and Simon blushed at her praise. "Jace, on the other hand..." 

"Hey! It's not my fault that the production team has it in for me!" 

Alec had been quiet throughout dinner, deep in thought and very serious. "Is there any way we can get in touch with them? Make sure that the other two teams really forfeited?" he suddenly asked. 

"They did say there was a phone by the gate, but they're not obliged to tell us anything. They might feel that not letting us know keeps up the suspense," Magnus said. 

"Maybe," Alec agreed, chewing on his bottom lip absently.

The five phones went off, right on schedule, and Alec's frown returned. "If the other two teams have forfeited, why are they still sending them messages?"  

"It's probably pre-programmed," Magnus pointed out, then added in a lower voice, "Alexander, are you sure you're ok?"

Alec's siblings were already crowding around the phones on the mantlepiece with their teammates, teasing each other and excited about the scavenger hunt - all previous uneasiness forgotten. From the conversation Magnus could hear, Simon and Izzy had been tasked with finding a trowel, probably somewhere in the greenhouse. Jace and Clary, on the other hand, were supposed to retrieve a metronome that they knew was in the music room, and Jace was gloating that they'd be done and back in the dining room in ten minutes. Alec was watching them with a troubled expression on his face, then heaved a sigh and got out of his chair.

"Let's find out what we're supposed to be looking for."

Magnus and Alec went up to their phone and Magnus made a face when he saw the picture - four silver coins. 

"Well, Alexander, I guess we're going for an evening dip in the pool," Magnus said with a sigh.   

It was barely eight o'clock, but it was already dark outside, and deathly still - no sound of insects, not even a whisper of wind in the trees. The West wing was the closest to the pool house, but Alec and Magnus opted to leave through the servants' door at the back of the kitchens and cross the courtyard instead. The pool house door was ajar, as they had left it, and after some fumbling they managed to find the lights. 

Magnus had to admit that the place looked almost pleasant with all the lights on, but the multitude of reflections from the lights overhead and the lights inside the pool made it much harder to spot the four silver coins, although he thought he could remember their general locations.

"Well, no sense both of us getting wet," he said, bending down to undo the laces on his boots.

"You're going in by yourself?" Alec asked.  

Magnus didn't answer, focusing on removing his boots and socks, then shrugged out of his jacket and shirt, handing those to Alec before making his way to the steps that led into the pool. At first contact of his bare foot on the slimy tile, Magnus wrinkled his nose - then decided to bite the bullet and dove right in.

The water was cold but manageable. As a swimming pool it was pretty disgusting, but Magnus had grown up swimming in rivers and lakes, and a little bit of algae never hurt anyone. Probably. He squinted, scanning the murky bottom for something shiny, and by the time he had to come up for air, he had the first coin in his fist. He heard a loud splash to his left and turned in surprise - Alec came up to the surface sweeping his wet hair out of his eyes with one hand, and he held up a coin between the fingers of his other hand. 

"I bet I can find the rest of the coins faster than you can," Alec said, the beginnings of a grin playing at the corner of his mouth. 

"You're on," Magnus said with an answering grin, already racking his brain for the location of the next coin. 

Alec got the next one, by virtue of having been closer to it, then it was a mad dash to beat each other to the last coin, which seemed to have been lost in the muck. After two false alarms, Magnus finally spotted it, but was only too aware of Alec swimming over from not too far away. They narrowly avoided colliding into each other, and in the playful scuffle that followed, they lost sight of it again, until Magnus felt it under his foot. 

"I think I just stepped on it," Magnus said. Grabbing onto Alec's arm for balance as he stood on one foot, he triumphantly extracted the last coin from between his toes, and Alec laughed when he produced it with a flourish.

"Guess we're even," Alec said. 

Standing so close to Alec that he could see every shifting colour in Alec's hazel eyes, one hand on the firm muscle of Alec's arm, and with Alec's wet t-shirt clinging to his body the way it did, Magnus begged to differ, because he was totally winning. Alec's gaze flickered from Magnus' eyes to his lips, then lower still - then back up again in a hurry.

Magnus grinned mischievously. "The green in the water really brings out your eyes," he told Alec, and Alec snorted.

He opened his mouth, probably to shoot back a retort, then froze. "I could have sworn I heard..." Alec looked genuinely uneasy. 

Then Magnus heard it too - the pitter patter of small bare feet, the high giggle of a child, then a loud splash in the periphery of his vision. He turned around quickly, just in time to see ripples spreading out towards them from a spot quite near the edge of the pool furthest from them, as if someone had just jumped in. Except the ripples weren't evening out - Magnus could see them getting closer and closer although nothing visible was making them, and Magnus was suddenly absolutely certain that they didn't want whatever that was making those ripples to reach them.

"I think it's time we got out of the water. We're going to catch a cold," Magnus said, amazed that he'd managed to sound a lot calmer than he felt. 

They swam to the other side quickly and heaved themselves out of the water, and all the time Magnus reminded himself not to look backwards. They scrambled to their feet and made their way to their pile of shoes and dry things. Magnus' first instinct was to grab their stuff and run - but running out into the dark barefoot seemed pretty stupid. 

It's just a trick, a recording and probably something mechanical making the ripples. It's just a TV show, he reminded himself. 

Then they heard Jace's voice calling out their names, and in a moment Jace rushed in with Clary hot on his heels. 

"What's wrong? What happened?" Alec demanded. 

"I feel like _I_ should be asking that question," Jace said. 

Magnus risked a glance at the pool as he pulled on his shirt - the ripples were gone now, the surface of the water completely still again.

"We had to go in to get the coins, we didn't go swimming in there for _fun_ ," Alec said.

"Yeah, but you didn't have to go in fully dressed, what the fuck," Jace retorted. 

"There are cameras everywhere!"

"And now you're going to have to walk back to the house in wet clothes, stupid."

" _Guys_ ," Clary interrupted them.

"What did you see that had you running in like that?" Magnus asked. 

"Ok, so we went to the music room to get the thing, and there was music coming from the room, but not the song we heard this afternoon," Jace said. 

"They basically had a recorder that played 'Rock-a-bye Baby' on a timer stuffed inside the fireplace," Clary said. "But after we'd gone back to the dining room and put the metronome on the mantlepiece, we heard someone _singing_ the song from the afternoon, right in the courtyard, so we went out to take a look." 

"Two kids, a boy and a girl. Maybe 7 or 8 years old, wearing these weird flowy nightgown things. And the moment they saw us, they ran off in this direction," Jace said. 

"We didn't see them come in," Alec said as he took his shirt off so he could wring out the water, and Magnus lost track of the conversation for a few seconds.

When he came back, Jace was saying, "Pffft. Of course they were just kid actors. I mean, creepy children is like the oldest trick in the book." 

"Let's just go back to the house. The two of you need a warm bath," Clary said.  

By the time they got back up to their room, Alec was obviously shivering, even though Clary had insisted on making them both hot drinks. The first thing Magnus did was to go into the bathroom to start running a bath with water as hot as the old heater could manage, and he was glad to see that the water was clearer today. 

"The water should be ready soon. Why don't you go first?" he told Alec. 

"No, you go first," Alec protested with a frown.

"Alexander, you're going to get sick standing there in your wet clothes," Magnus chided him.

"So are you," Alec said, crossing his arms.

"For goodness sake," Magnus sighed, then and beckoned to Alec. "Let's just do this together."

"You want to - what?" Alec asked, glancing at the clock with the hidden camera. 

"No sense us both catching a cold. Communal baths are a thing," Magnus said nonchalantly, even though he was feeling anything but. 

"Right. Of course," Alec said, tongue darting out to wet his lips and heat rising in his eyes.  

They kept their backs to each other as they started taking their clothes off in the bathroom, but the sounds of their shirts hitting the floor was deafening, and the silence that followed even more so. Magnus managed to control himself for about half a second before turning around, only to find that Alec was already crossing the distance between them. He crashed their lips together, and Magnus yielded readily, letting Alec's tongue ravage his mouth as Alec pushed him against the wall.

"Fuck, Magnus, please say you want this too," Alec panted, bucking his hips into Magnus'. 

" _Hell_ yes," Magnus replied and deftly unzipped both Alec's jeans and his own so they could rut against each other without the rough denim in the way.

Alec's kisses were hungry, insistent, and Magnus couldn't help but kiss him back with the same fervour - lips moving against Alec's, opening up for him so Alec could fuck his mouth with his tongue. Magnus could feel Alec's cock filling out as it rubbed against his own, but just as he felt that they were getting a nice rhythm going, Alec suddenly pulled away, breathing hard. "There's lube and condoms in the drawer. Let me just-"

"Alexander!" Magnus tried to call him back, but he was already dashing out of the bathroom, hastily doing up his fly as he went. In less than a minute he was back, slamming the door shut behind him and dumping the lube and condoms on the vanity table. 

"They're all going to know what we're doing in here," Magnus murmured, laughing.

"I don't care," Alec replied, reclaiming Magnus' lips in a demanding kiss. 

Soggy jeans and underwear hit the floor in between kisses, then Magnus dropped to his knees, mouthing teasingly at Alec's balls as he urged him to spread his legs so that Magnus could reach his entrance more easily. He pressed one slick finger into Alec, and Alec keened, trying to guide Magnus' mouth where he wanted him with one hand tugging gently on his hair.

"God, please, Magnus," Alec pleaded, gasping when Magnus began to lick along his shaft, running the flat of his tongue up the thick vein on the underside of Alec's cock.  

Magnus kept up his teasing, avoiding the swollen, leaking head of his cock despite Alec’s increasingly desperate begging, and worked in a second finger. When Alec was relaxed enough to take another finger, Magnus swallowed Alec down to the root in one go while thrusting three fingers into his tight hole. 

"Ah! _Fuck fuck fuck_ , Magnus, I'm going to come-" Alec cried out as Magnus' throat worked around his cock, then gasped when Magnus squeezed hard at the base of his cock and pulled off.

Alec leaned back against the wall, breathing laboured as he tried to get himself under control, shuddering when Magnus slowly pulled his fingers out.  

"Are you ok, darling?" Magnus asked, voice rough.

Alec pulled him to his feet and kissed him so hard he felt a little dizzy, then turned around and bent over. "I need you to fuck me right now."  

Magnus swallowed hard and snagged a condom from the pile on the vanity table. He fumbled with the foil wrapper, hands too slippery to tear it open properly. 

Alec glanced over his shoulder to see what was causing the delay, then said, "I haven't been with anybody in ages, and I'm clear," letting the offer hang between them expectantly. 

"Me too, but are you sure?" Magnus asked breathlessly. 

" _Yes_ , c'mon," Alec said impatiently, already reaching behind to spread himself with both hands, and Magnus groaned with arousal at the sight, flinging the condom somewhere out of the way.  

Magnus took himself in hand and guided his cock towards Alec's entrance. Even with prep from three fingers, he was still tight - at the first go, the head of Magnus' cock caught on the rim but slipped right off, making both of them gasp. Magnus gripped Alec's hip with his other hand and tried again, and this time he managed to press the head of his cock into Alec before Alec almost squeezed him out again with an involuntary flex of his inner muscles.

"Keep going," Alec panted, and Magnus obliged, fucking Alec shallowly and pushing in slowly by increments.

He could see and feel Alec clenching and flexing around him as Alec tried to adjust to being fucked open on his cock, could hear the increasingly wrecked sounds Alec was trying to stifle as Magnus thrusts pushed himself deeper and deeper into Alec.

"Oh god, fuck, _Alexander_ ," Magnus groaned when he finally sank the last inch of his shaft inside Alec’s tight heat. 

Magnus swivelled his hips, grinding into Alec, and Alec gasped, fingers scrabbling futilely for purchase on the wall tiles and already trying to push back against Magnus. 

"Fuck me, please, fuck me - ah!" 

Magnus gripped Alec's hips with both hands to hold him in place, drawing out the drag of his cock inside Alec's body, mesmerised by the way Alec's rim clung to his cock as he pulled out; then thrust back in, hard. Alec bit down on his lip to muffle his cry of pleasure and dropped his head, adjusting his stance as Magnus began to fuck him in earnest and trying to get Magnus' cock to hit the perfect angle, until-

"Fuck! God, right there!" Alec gasped, hips pushing back to chase the sensation of Magnus' cock nudging his prostate and throwing the rhythm of their fucking into a desperate push-pull of their bodies trying to get even closer to each other. 

Being inside Alec was a revelation, but the eagerness with which he was trying to fuck himself on Magnus' cock was what really made the heat coiling inside Magnus go supernova. He pinned Alec against the wall so he could give Alec what he was breathlessly begging for - harder, deeper, _more_ , over and over again, until the pressure inside him crested and broke, and he filled Alec with hot spurts of his release. 

Alec groaned at the sensation of Magnus coming inside him, and his hand flew to his own cock. With just a few strokes he was coming too, Magnus' cock still buried deep inside him, and Magnus' name falling from his lips in a choked-off moan.

Magnus inhaled sharply as Alec clenched around him, grinding into him as both of them rode out their orgasms. When he'd finally caught his breath, he pulled out of Alec. Alec grunted at the sudden feeling of emptiness, then let out a soft gasp when Magnus' come started to leak out and trickle down his thighs, giving in to a full body shiver. 

The bathtub was overflowing by now, the water cascading off the sides. Magnus hoped that had been noisy enough to mask most of the sounds they'd made from being picked up by the cameras in the bedroom.

"Let's get in the tub," Magnus suggested, pressing a gentle kiss to Alec's shoulder.  

It was lucky that the bathtub was huge, big enough that both of them could sit in it without too much of a squeeze. The water was just a little too hot, but it felt great after the cold of the swimming pool and the perhaps slightly ill-advised half an hour they'd just spent damp and naked. 

Alec helped Magnus in first, and Magnus pulled Alec half into his lap, wrapping his arms around him and kissing him. Alec seemed only too glad to make out and cuddle after the incredible sex they'd just had, both of them exploring the curves and planes of each other's bodies with gentle hands. The tension and anticipation between them felt less urgent but still unsated, and Magnus knew that Alec felt the same way when Alec's hand swept up his inner thighs, then higher to his cock, and began to stroke him to full hardness. 

"Is this still ok?" Alec asked.

"Yes, god, yes," Magnus whispered, his own fingers tracing the path towards Alec's entrance and drawing a moan from both of them when he pushed two fingers in and met barely any resistance. 

Once Alec had got Magnus hard again, he angled himself into Magnus lap and held the base of his cock steady before fucking himself down onto it. Alec took his cock easily, insides still slick with the remnants of come and lube and already stretched open by Magnus' cock just minutes before, and all it took was one smooth movement to have Magnus buried deep inside Alec again. Alec had his back to Magnus's chest, head resting on Magnus' shoulder and his long legs spread shamelessly wide, dangling over the edges of the tub. Magnus scrambled for enough leverage to fuck upwards into him, watching Alec's abs shuddering and contracting with each thrust into his body, watching Alec run his hands over his own body, lightly pinching his own nipples and playing with his cock and balls.  

"God, look at you," Magnus breathed. "Touch yourself. Show me how you like it."

Alec moaned and complied, fisting his cock lazily with one hand and rolling one nipple between his thumb and index finger while Magnus fucked him slowly. At this angle, Magnus didn't have enough range of movement to fuck Alec as hard or fast as before, but he could feel the head of his cock dragging along inside Alec's body, and that seemed to be enough to get Alec going. 

"Fuck, Magnus, you're filling me up so good," Alec said breathlessly, grinding down to take Magnus deeper while the hand on his cock sped up.  

He tilted his head to kiss Magnus, sliding his tongue insistently into Magnus' mouth. Magnus deepened the kiss, flicking his tongue against Alec's and moaning when Alec's rhythm began to falter and he began to feel Alec flexing around his cock. 

"Magnus, _Magnus_ ," Alec chanted against Magnus' lips, breath hitching as he chased his climax; then he was coming hard, and Magnus swallowed his cries of pleasure with a kiss. 

They rocked together slowly in the water as Alec came down from his climax, Magnus still achingly hard inside him. Alec let himself relax into Magnus' arms, stealing kisses while he tried to catch his breath. 

When he'd finally recovered the use of his limbs, he eased himself off Magnus' cock, and Magnus hissed at the contrast of the cooling bathwater after the welcome heat of Alec's body. Alec turned around to face Magnus and pushed his legs apart, hooking them over the side of the tub, then got between them. There was a hungry gleam in his eyes as he took in Magnus spread out in front of him, and Magnus moaned when Alec closed his fist around Magnus' cock and began to jerk him off slowly. His other hand caressed Magnus' balls, then slid past his perineum; and Magnus bucked up into Alec's fist when he felt Alec's finger teasing his rim. 

"Fuck - _ah_ , Alexander, _please_ -" Magnus cried out, both hands gripping the sides of the tub as Alec circled his entrance with the pad of his thumb, increasing the pressure and mercilessly stroking over his hole until Magnus was writhing under him, arching into his touch.

"If I had another round in me I'd fuck you right now, just like this," Alec murmured, and Magnus made a helpless noise of arousal at the image those words put in his head. 

Alec pressed just the tip of his thumb into Magnus. It stung a little, but Magnus was too far gone to care - he was so close that all he wanted was _more_. Alec began to jerk him faster, gripping Magnus' cock firmly and rubbing the sensitive head with his thumb until Magnus was light-headed with the intensity of the stimulation. He was so close he could taste it, his balls drawn up tight and his hole clenching around the intrusion of Alec thumbing him open. 

"Come for me, Magnus," Alec said, and Magnus came with a raw cry of pleasure. 

Alec kept stroking him through his climax, coaxing every last drop of come out of him until Magnus was completely empty, before sitting back on his haunches, looking exhausted but unbearably happy. Magnus couldn't even muster enough brain cells to speak, slumped back against the tub in a state of total bliss.

Alec looked down at the water, still warm but now too much on the side of cold, and wrinkled his nose. "I guess we need to run another bath," he said, and Magnus laughed. 

Magnus woke up to aching muscles, a freezing room, and strong arms holding him close to a broad chest. Alec made a grumpy sound of protest when Magnus shifted in his arms and snuggled closer, pressing his cold nose into the curve of Magnus' neck. Magnus laughed lightly and squirmed away, turning around in Alec's arms to face him properly. 

"Morning," Alec mumbled, voice sleep rough, and cracked one eye open reluctantly. 

"Morning," Magnus replied, and leaned closer to Alec - so close that Alec's lips were a breath away from his, close enough to kiss but not quite yet - and let his eyes fall shut when Alec pulled the duvet over their heads and closed the distance.

Alec's lips were soft against his own, just a hint of tongue swiping across his bottom lip and coaxing his lips apart as Alec's hand slipped under his shirt to rest on the small of his back. Magnus cupped the back of Alec's head gently, running a hand through the soft hair at his nape as they lost themselves in the taste of each other's lips. 

"Magnus, after this show is over - can I still see you?" Alec whispered against his lips.  

"Of course," Magnus replied softly. "I believe we don't live that far away from each other." 

"Yeah," Alec said, relieved. "Maybe we could, you know, get a drink sometime?"

"I would love that," Magnus said, smiling. "And I'd also love to stay in bed all day since this is our last day here, but we should probably go down for breakfast or the rest will worry."

"Oh no, what time is it?" Alec asked, throwing off the duvet and wincing as he stretched - then he froze at the sight of the open French windows. "Magnus, did you open the windows last night?" he asked, an odd tone in his voice.

"No, I thought you did - since you got up to open them as well the night before," Magnus replied, puzzled by the sudden tension in Alec's shoulders. "Is everything alright?" 

"Sure. Everything's fine," Alec said, his voice strained. "Let's go see how the rest fared last night."

 

 


	6. Day Three, 12.30PM

 

  

"Wow, look who finally decided to join us," Jace said with a smirk as they entered the dining room. "We were about to go up there to check if the ghosts of Blackthorn House had finally done you guys in. After all, you know what happens when a couple does the nasty in a horror movie."

Alec pointedly ignored his brother's insinuations. "You're all still here, so you can't have woken up much earlier." 

"Yeah, Izzy and Simon came over to our room, so we ended up having a mini sleepover," Clary said. 

"And by 'sleepover', she means that the two of them went into a corner to giggle and gossip about something, while Simon and I tried to find something to talk about," Jace said. "Spoiler alert: we have nothing in common."

"Excuse you, we did not 'giggle and gossip', we were having a very serious discussion about climate change and conservation. And despite having 'nothing in common' with Simon, the two of you were still talking when we went to sleep," Izzy retorted.

Magnus' eyes were drawn to the silver Star of David medallion swinging around Izzy's neck as she spoke, and he glanced at the mantlepiece to confirm his suspicions. "You didn't complete your task last night. Did something happen when you went to the greenhouse?" he asked Izzy and Simon. 

Izzy and Simon immediately glanced at each other, then looked away. "No, we just couldn't find the trowel and gave up," Izzy said.

"Then what's that around your neck?" Alec demanded.  

They were both quiet for a while, but under the insistent curious and concerned gazes of those around them, Simon finally cracked.

"Ok, so you know how the greenhouse is right next to the graveyard? We got the trowel pretty quickly, and as we were heading back, we saw someone lurking around the trees in the distance. I figured it was just a crew member, but Izzy thought they looked suspicious because they looked like they were dragging something heavy and she wanted to investigate, so we went nearer. But we only got about halfway across the graveyard when our flashlights suddenly started flickering and went out - and then all these tiny will-o'-wisps started popping out of the ground-"

"Just marshlights. You know, spontaneous combustion of methane," Izzy explained quickly. "But they distracted us enough that we'd lost sight of the person anyway, so we tried to get back to the house."

"Tried?" Alec asked, frowning. 

"For some reason, the more we tried to get to the house, the further we seemed to be, and there just seemed to be more and more of the marshlights... and someone seemed to be following us. We could hear heavy breathing behind us, really close, but every time we turned around there was nobody there. In the end he got so close that Simon threw the trowel behind us, and suddenly the marshlights went out and we managed to get back inside the house. And Simon lent me this to wear, just in case," Izzy said, shyly indicating the medallion around her neck. 

"Um, it belonged to my Bubbie Helen. I thought it might help if we bumped into anything weird again," Simon said, blushing and ducking his head. "After that we thought it might be better to stick together. Safety in numbers, you know? That's why we went to Clary and Jace's room."

"You came over past midnight," Clary said. "Do you mean that you were stuck out there for _four hours_?" 

"I don't know what happened," Simon said helplessly. 

"And ghosts are afraid of gardening tools now?" Jace asked incredulously. 

"Cold iron. Traditionally used to repel malevolent forces," Magnus explained with a frown. "Or maybe you just hit the crew member who was messing around with you in the head with the trowel."

"Oh fuck, I hope not!" Simon said, horrified. 

"Whatever it is, I'm just glad that it's our last day here," Alec muttered, even as he reached under the table to give Magnus' hand a reassuring squeeze, and Magnus squeezed back to show that he understood. 

"They're probably going to up the ante in their tricks to drive us out of here today, so they won't have to pay out the prize money," Magnus pointed out. 

"Alright, then let's all stick together today, even during the night scavenger hunt. In the meantime we could do something safe and less exciting to pass the time," Clary said.

"Jam in the music room?" Simon suggested. 

"Ugh, the photos they have of us are starting to give me the creeps," Clary said, wrinkling her nose. "Yesterday when we were there, I noticed that they'd scratched out Elliot's eyes too, though they left Dot's photo alone. I don't think it was very nice of them to deface the photos."

"And I veto the library," Izzy said immediately. 

Magnus tapped his chin, brows furrowed in thought. "How about boardgames?" 

"This is _not_ what I was thinking of when I suggested boardgames," Magnus said, warily eyeing the heavy wooden board Jace had just placed on the table they were all sitting at.  

It was a pretty classic example of a ouija board - 26 letters of the alphabet and the numbers one to zero, as well as 'Yes', 'No', and 'Goodbye' painted on the surface, together with some simple designs of a sun and a waxing crescent moon with a single star. It was impossible to tell the age of it, since Magnus knew it was possible to make wood look more aged than it actually was, so for all they knew it could be a plant by the production team. 

Alec picked up the board, turning it over to examine it thoroughly for any sort of tampering. When he was satisfied, he examined the marker that came with it as well - a heart-shaped piece of wood about half the size of his palm, with little wheels at the bottom and a hole through the tip just big enough to show one letter or number, which Magnus knew was called a planchette. 

"Why would you want to give the production team _more_ ways to scare us?" Izzy demanded. 

"Seriously, Iz? Since when do you believe in ghosts, and why would a piece of wood scare you?" Jace taunted her. " _I'm_ not scared. So who's the scaredy-cat now?"

"Oh. My. God. Jace, are you seriously still upset about us laughing at you because of the dumb plastic skeleton?" Izzy asked disbelievingly. 

"No, I'm just proving a point," Jace said belligerently. "Come on, there's no such thing as ghosts, right? Nothing is going to happen even if we do this. Who's in?"

Izzy met Jace's eye, chin held high, and put her finger on the planchette. Jace grinned and put his finger on it as well.  

"This is such a bad idea," Simon muttered, but placed a finger on the planchette, next to Izzy's. Clary shrugged and joined in. 

"You guys in?" Jace asked Magnus and Alec.

Alec sighed heavily, then placed his finger on the planchette. Magnus was the last to add his finger to the mix, resting his fingertip lightly on the surface of the wood. 

"Has anybody done this before? What do we do now?" Izzy asked. 

"Simon and I played something like this at a party once when we were in high school, with an overturned glass and a piece of paper, but I'm not sure how to start," Clary said. 

Magnus took a deep breath. "I suppose we start with 'Hello, is anybody there?'" 

The planchette remained absolutely still. 

"See? I told you nothing was going to-" Jace started to say; then Magnus felt the planchette jerk under their fingertips, before moving from the centre of the board to the top left-hand corner - 'Yes'. 

Everyone stared at the board. 

"Izzy, are you doing this?" Jace asked. 

Izzy shook her head wordlessly. One look at all the shocked faces around the table was enough to assure Magnus that nobody was doing this as a joke. But he'd read a little bit about things like these, and the theory was that people were subconsciously moving the marker to give answers that they were already expecting. 

"What's your name?" he asked. 

Once again the planchette took some time to respond, but eventually it spelled out 'Lily', paused for a while, then spelled out 'Tristan'. 

"That's the names of the Blackthorn twins," Izzy said in a hushed voice.

Magnus noticed that almost everyone nodded - so this was common knowledge to everyone except Magnus and Simon. It would make sense for the twins to be at the forefront of their minds, given the experiences of Jace, Clary, and Alec the night before; so far the board wasn't behaving in any way that indicated that its answers came from a supernatural source.  

"Why are you here?" Izzy asked the board. 

The planchette responded a little more quickly this time - "house". 

"You mean, because this is where you lived when you were alive?" she asked. 

The planchette moved to 'No'. Then slowly and laboriously spelled out, "not let us leave". 

"Wait, so you're saying that you can't leave because the house is keeping you here? How is it doing that?" Jace asked in confusion, apparently having forgotten the part where he didn't believe in ghosts or ouija boards. 

The planchette didn't form a reply, but it was still moving - travelling slowly through the letters, A to Z, then back again. 

"What's behind the red door in the basement?" Alec suddenly asked. 

The planchette stopped moving over the letters, and went to 'No'. 

"What does that mean? You don't know?" he asked again. The planchette jerked a little but remained in the same place. 

"Are you warning us to stay away from the red door?"

The planchette went to 'Yes', then resumed its odd movement over the alphabet. 

"What is it doing?" Izzy whispered. 

"Well, they're kids. Maybe they're singing the alphabet song," Jace said with a shrug. 

"No, I've read horror stories about this before. I think it's supposed to be a sign that the spirit is a malevolent one, and it's trying to break out of the board," Clary said, starting to look frightened. 

"Fuck, then how do we make it stop?" Jace asked, sounding alarmed now. 

By now, the planchette had finished one more pass over the alphabet, and was now shifting lower down the board, to the numbers. 

Nine. 

Eight. 

Seven. 

Six.

"Thank you for taking the time to talk to us, but we are all leaving tomorrow and we really must go back to our rooms and pack. Goodbye!" Magnus said calmly. 

Five.

Four.

The planchette finally stopped its countdown, and everyone relaxed a little. 

"Ok, now let's all guide the planchette to the 'Goodbye' position," Magnus said. All of them pressed down on the planchette with their fingertips, but the planchette refused to budge. 

"We're not playing anymore. Goodbye," Magnus repeated firmly. 

The planchette started moving again, but not in the direction that they were all urging it to go. Instead of moving to the 'Goodbye' position, it began to spell out another message. 

"Stay... and... play," Izzy read out. The planchette paused, then spelled out one more word: "...forever." 

"Stay and play, forever," Simon repeated faintly. "Holy fuck."

The planchette shuddered under their fingers, then began to move rapidly over the board, spelling out the same phrase over and over again, faster and faster, until it was almost impossible to keep their fingers on the wooden marker.

"What happens if we take our fingers away?" Jace asked, eyes wide with growing terror.

"I don't think that's something we're supposed to do!" Clary replied in a panicked tone.

But whoever or whatever was controlling the board obviously had other ideas, because the planchette suddenly jerked itself out from under all their fingers, spinning violently all over the board and slamming itself against the edges as if there was an invisible barrier all around and it was a live thing trying to get out.

"What do we do now?" Simon yelped.

Everyone had scrambled out of their chairs and were backing away from the board, but Alec moved forward and tried to make a grab at the planchette. The thing avoided him deftly, then flew back to the numbers on the board - three, two, one, zero, in rapid succession. 

"Watch out!" Magnus said sharply, and pulled Alec down to the floor just in time - the planchette shot off the board towards where Alec's head had been just moments before, and struck the wall behind with enough force that the wooden point pierced through the plaster and the planchette lodged itself in the wall.

They stared at it, all of them breathing hard. Magnus' heart was racing in his chest, and it was getting harder and harder to write everything off as a very clever trick. And was it just his imagination, or had the temperature in the room suddenly dropped by several degrees? 

"That thing could have killed Alec!" Izzy said in horror.

"I don't care if that was just a trick by the production team, this is getting out of hand. Forget the prize money, it's not worth it," Magnus said. "Everybody go back to your rooms and pack up. We have to leave Blackthorn House right now."

It had been slightly past three o'clock when they left the games room, which left them a couple of hours before sunset to get out of Blackthorn House. Alec and Magnus were halfway up to the third floor when there was a sudden crack of thunder, and the two of them exchanged a look - after the message that had supposedly come to them through the ouija board about the house not letting the spirits of the dead go, it was hard not to imagine that the House somehow had the power to influence the weather and make it more difficult for them to leave. 

When they got back to their room, Magnus couldn't help but notice that the French windows that led to the balcony were wide open again, the pale curtains billowing in the rising wind, even though they'd definitely latched the windows and closed the curtains before they'd left. Magnus felt an involuntary shiver go through him and went to latch them shut again. 

They threw their stuff back into their bags haphazardly, and Magnus didn't even bother folding his shirts even though it meant that they'd be hopelessly wrinkled when he unpacked them later. It was only when Alec was already done with his packing that Magnus noticed that his ear cuff was missing. He pulled the duvet off the bed and shook out the pillows, then checked under the bed, but it was nowhere to be found. He frowned, trying to recall if he'd been wearing it when they'd gone down to the dining room earlier; he almost never took it off, but it also meant that sometimes it left a phantom sensation of still being there. 

"Magnus, is something wrong?" Alec asked. 

"I seem to have misplaced my ear cuff. It's not a big deal, it's just a trinket that I bought as a souvenir when I went back to Indonesia last year to visit my mother's grave," Magnus said, waving a hand dismissively.

"Why don't you finish up your packing and I'll, um, check the bathroom," Alec suggested a little shyly.

"A brilliant idea, darling," Magnus replied with a wink, grinning when Alec turned even redder before disappearing into the bathroom.

A number of things then happened in quick succession: there was a shrill scream of terror from the courtyard downstairs, unmistakably Clary's voice, and Magnus was up on his feet like a shot, unlatching the French windows and running out to the balcony to take a look. The windows slammed shut behind him, and before he could turn around fully, he was shoved hard from behind with unnatural force; the world tilted for one heart-lurching moment, and then he was falling off the side of the balcony to certain death.

Magnus made a desperate grab for something that might stop his fall, and by pure luck one of his hands caught the fat base of one of the spindles on the balustrade. Lightning flashed in the storm clouds overhead, then thunder boomed so loudly that Magnus felt his eardrums vibrating, and it took every ounce of steel in his heart not to let go of his tenuous grip on his only hope of surviving this. The spindle was too wide and not the easiest shape to hold on to, the smooth surface almost too slippery, and he knew that if it started pouring now he was doomed. As it was, he wasn't sure how long he could hold on with only one hand. Then he heard the sound of breaking glass, and he looked up - and while Alec was always a sight for sore eyes, he was beautiful even when looking panic-stricken and terrified, peering at Magnus between the spindles.

Alec quickly reached out for Magnus' forearm, and between the two of them they managed to help Magnus get a firmer grip on the balustrade with both his hands. When Alec stood up to hook his hand under Magnus' arm to help him over the top of the balustrade, Magnus couldn't help recalling the little tidbit of information that they'd been given, that someone had died in their room by jumping off the balcony; and that someone - or _something_ \- had pushed him over the edge, and they were both currently in a very precarious position.

"Alexander, I think I was pushed by a ghost," Magnus said bluntly, deciding that Alec needed to know the facts even if it made him sound insane.

Then Alec surprised him by replying, "I know. That's why we have to hurry. Can you get your foot there?"

Less than ten minutes must have passed from the point when Magnus had been pushed over the edge to them crouching low with their backs against the balustrade, hearts racing and sweating profusely, but Magnus felt like he had gained a few extra white hairs in his near brush with death, and his view of the world would certainly never be the same again. He had sidestepped into a world where ghosts were real and could physically harm the living, where apparently a house had gained some sort of evil control over the spirits of the dead. He noticed Alec had the decorative cast-iron poker that had been sitting in the dummy boarded-up fireplace in their room next to him - that explained the sound of breaking glass, and perhaps also why they'd been left unmolested while Alec rescued Magnus.

"The first day that we were here, when I came out here to the balcony, a voice told me to jump," Alec said quietly. "I'm sorry, I should have told you that earlier. You almost died because it tricked you out here."

"That's why you've been so obsessed with the windows," Magnus realised.

Thunder rumbled overhead again, and Magnus felt the first cold drops of rain begin to fall on him. It couldn't have been later than four in the afternoon, but the storm clouds had blocked out the sun, and it was so dark now that they barely had any light to see by. Beyond the puddle of shattered glass where Alec had apparently bashed his way through the locked windows to get to Magnus, their room looked dark and foreboding. 

"We have to get to the others," Magnus said. "I'm sure the sound I heard wasn't actually Clary, but I have a feeling that the House is making its move on all of us now. I shouldn't have suggested that we get our things - it's my fault, we should all have left straight away from the games room."

"Hey, no. It's not your fault. I don't think anybody really believed that the House was haunted. I certainly didn't, or at least I didn't want to believe," Alec reassured Magnus quickly. He tightened his grip on the poker. "Come on. Let's find the others and get out of this place."  

The trip to the East wing seemed to take far longer than Magnus remembered, the storm outside the House raging in full force now as they ran down the corridors. Izzy and Simon's room was the closest, but their room was empty, bags half packed. Jace and Clary's room was also empty, their bags also half packed. 

"Maybe they realised something was wrong and left without taking their things," Magnus suggested. 

They checked the foyer next, and Alec peered out of the front door into the garden, but it was raining so heavily that it was impossible to see anything. 

"They wouldn't have left without you, at any rate," Magnus reminded him gently. 

"I don't care if they left without me, I'd rather they be safe," Alec said grimly. "Let's try the dining room."

But the dining room was empty as well. 

"Where could they be?" Alec muttered to himself, deep in thought. 

"Maybe we can try-" Magnus started to say, but was interrupted by five discordant chimes from the phones. 

"What the fuck? It can't be-" Alec said, then stopped talking when he glanced down at his watch. "It's 7.30pm."

"How could that be? Wasn't it just three o'clock not too long ago?" Magnus asked, bewildered, then it dawned on him. "The corridors - it's like what happened to Simon and Izzy out at the cemetery. We must have lost some time that way."

Alec huffed in frustration, then walked up to the mantlepiece, and for a moment Magnus wondered if he was going to try to smash the glass case to get to the phones inside so they could call for help. Then the phones chimed a second time, and Alec frowned. He leaned closer to look at one of the screens and suddenly turned pale. 

"Magnus, come and see this."

The second message they had just received wasn't from the production team. All five phones had received the same message, and even as Magnus leaned in to read, all the phones chimed as they received the same message again, then again, over and over: "STAY AND PLAY FOREVER AND EVER."

 

 


	7. Day Three, 7.30PM

 

 

If - _when_ \- they got out of this alive, Alec promised himself that he was never going to let Jace or Izzy talk him into anything they'd planned ever again - not vacations, not road trips, not even a fucking birthday party. But first, they'd have to find them - and Alec had a feeling that they were running out of time. 

"The two teams that went missing... I suspect that they didn't exactly forfeit and go home," Magnus said. 

"So if we find out where they are, then we'll know where the others have gone," Alec said, catching on. 

Magnus nodded. "I think our best bet may be that red door in the basement, but we shouldn't go in unprepared either."

Alec looked down at the poker he'd picked up from their room. It was the first thing that had been on hand, and made a serviceable weapon - about as long as his forearm, with a wicked point at the tip. Magnus could use the one from the dining room fireplace, and they could grab some knives from the kitchen. Or...  

"There are a couple of suits of armour in a nook under the main staircase in the foyer. I think there were short swords strapped to their belts," he said. "Those would be made of steel, though." 

"I'm not sure how useful those would be against spirits, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to have more weapons. Do you know how to use a sword? I've never used one, and I think I might end up taking my own arm off," Magnus said. 

"Went for a few classes with Jace and Izzy. It's not that difficult," Alec said with a shrug. Magnus nodded in agreement, and they headed out to the foyer. 

They were a few feet away from the nook under the stairs when Magnus tugged on his arm and pointed out a few reddish-brown stains on the floor. 

"Probably the fake blood from yesterday, you know, from the pail that almost fell on Jace," Alec suggested uneasily, but when he looked up he couldn't see any obvious red stains on the ceiling.  

The red stains formed a trail all the way to the nook under the stairs. There were two suits of armour under there, but they seemed more rusty than Alec remembered from when the TV crew had filmed his "confessional" only a couple of days ago, especially around the base - or at least Alec hoped it was rust, because there also seemed to be a strong metallic odour. One of the suits had something blackened and pinkish sticking out under the helmet that Alec thought looked like some sort of dead slug. The swords were hanging loosely on a hook by the sides of the armour, but Alec found that the thought of going near enough to take them made his skin crawl. 

He held his poker at the ready and saw Magnus mirror his action, both of them bracing themselves for the suits of armour to give them an unpleasant surprise - maybe by coming alive and attacking them. Then they reached forward and lifted the swords off; Magnus' came off without a hitch, but Alec accidentally jolted his suit of armour just a little, and the helmet rolled off the top. Except that the helmet moved like there was something heavy inside it, only rolling a short distance away, and there was clearly something inside the suit of armour; red and wet with a shard of white, and the metallic stench intensified to a point that Alec's stomach heaved. The visor of the helmet had come loose in its fall, and to Alec's horror, it revealed a familiar face, frozen in an expression of abject terror. 

"Milo," Alec choked out, backing away. Which could only mean... 

"Edward must be in the other one. My god, I think that's his tongue," Magnus said faintly, looking nauseated. 

"They didn't turn up for breakfast after the first night. Does this mean that they've been inside these things all this time?" Alec blurted out, thinking of the number of times they'd all gone up and down the stairs without noticing this gruesome tableau right under their noses. 

But Magnus didn't answer, not immediately - he was frowning at the carpet, thinking. "They were killed in the same way that the inmate who used to occupy their room used to murder his victims. The ghost in our room, presumably that of the woman who jumped to her death, tried to push me off the balcony..." Magnus said, half to himself. 

"Izzy and Simon have the twins' room, and Jace and Clary have Annabel's room. You think the ghosts are going to try and kill them the same way that they died?" Alec asked, struggling to keep down the panic and terror rising inside him - he couldn't afford to freeze up now. Death by drowning and strangulation would only take a few minutes. "But we have no idea where the willow tree that Annabel and her boyfriend hanged herself from is. Unless it's one of the trees out beyond the cemetery." 

"It's worth a shot. The trees and the pool house are on opposite ends of the estate, though. We're going to have to split up if we want to have any chance of rescuing all four of them," Magnus said. 

Alec nodded jerkily in agreement. He knew they had no other choice, even if his every instinct was screaming in protest. They took the steps two at a time until they reached the landing on the second floor which branched off into the dark corridors of the two wings. Neither led to destinations Alec particularly wanted to be at. 

"I'll take the pool house, you take the tree," Magnus suggested. 

"Ok. Be careful," Alec replied, swallowing hard. 

"You too, darling," Magnus replied, one hand resting lightly on Alec's cheek for a fleeting moment, and then he was hurrying off towards the West wing.  

Alec made the mistake of glancing down to the foyer, and felt a chill run down his spine when he realised that he could see Milo's tortured face clearly from where he was standing. He tore his gaze away from the gory sight and ran as fast as he could towards the end of the East wing, trying not to feel like the dead man's eyes were on him. 

Magnus would have been lying if he said he wasn't terrified of what he might find in the pool house. The memory of the previous time he'd been here was still fresh and doubly horrifying now that he knew that it definitely hadn't been a set-up by the TV crew, but the only way to keep moving was to not give himself time to think about it. He flipped on the light switches, fully expecting that they would not work, and was immediately wary when they did. But he didn't have time to dwell on it, because there were two figures floating facedown in the water - Izzy and Simon.

Heart plummeting, he quickly dropped the poker and sword by the side of the pool and waded in. Izzy was the closest to him, so he pulled her out first. She was still breathing; he laid her on the side of the pool and turned her head to one side, and to his immense relief, she began to cough up water almost immediately. Satisfied that she would be ok on her own for a while, he dove in after Simon next.

He was halfway to Simon when the lights began to flicker. 

Magnus gritted his teeth, resisted the urge to look around, and concentrated on getting to Simon. The water had been cold before, but it was turning colder now, almost to the point of freezing - so cold that his fingers had gone completely numb. He could feel all his muscles seizing up, making it difficult to even breathe, and his wet clothes were really starting to weigh him down. The last couple of strokes towards Simon were almost impossible, forcing him to stop and put his feet down on the slimy pool bottom and try to lurch towards Simon. 

He was only an arm's length away from Simon when there was a sudden clap of thunder and the lights went out completely. Izzy let out a muffled scream. 

Was that the rain falling on the glass roof, or the footfalls of two running children? 

All the sounds were merging and echoing in the darkness of the pool house, but there was a distinct giggle coming from somewhere to Magnus' left, and then a splash somewhere behind. Panic shot through him and he doubled his efforts to get to Simon, but he'd barely gone two steps when Magnus felt something closing around his ankle, feeling unmistakably like a pair of small hands - and then he was being pulled under the icy water. 

Magnus quickly twisted around and kicked out on instinct, eyes searching the dark water at his feet even though he knew that he wouldn't be able to see anything. Lightning lit up the sky overhead, and in that split second of stark light and shadow, he saw a little girl clutching at his ankle with her bony fingers. After that he was never sure if he had actually seen all of it, or if his terrified, oxygen-deprived brain had filled in the horrific details - the brown cloud of long hair floating around her face, most of her features blurred and indiscernible because her undoubtedly once-sweet face had gone bloated and green, as if she'd been left in the water for a long time. But even in the shadows he could see her one remaining eye bulging out of its socket, and - oh god! - her worm-eaten lips baring her teeth in a terrible parody of a grin. 

Then the lightning passed, and he was plunged into darkness again. 

 

The rain was so heavy that Alec was drenched by the time he reached the greenhouse. The gravestones had been placed haphazardly and without plan, and although the beam from his flashlight only reached a few feet ahead of him, it was just enough light for him to run as quickly as he could without tripping and breaking something. He managed to cross the cemetery without encountering a single will-o'-wisp, shadowy stalker, or any other sign of the supernatural.

"Jace! Clary!" he shouted into the darkness as he neared the grove of trees, in the faint hope that they might still be able to reply him.  

He shone his flashlight in a sweeping motion and caught a glimpse of something white darting between the trees. He forced his feet forward to chase the movement, squinting against the rain, and a few steps later, he saw it again, leading him deeper into the grove. A few more steps in, another glimpse of something white, except that this one wasn't moving away; then Alec realised that they were a pair of sneakers dangling in midair, and dashed forward. 

Jace and Clary were still alive - fingers scrabbling at the ropes around their necks and eyes starting to roll backwards into their heads, but still alive. Alec grabbed Clary's legs first and sawed through the thick rope with the slightly blunt edge of his sword, then moved on to cut Jace down before working on getting the rope off both their necks. 

"Can you guys walk? We need to get out of here," Alec said, scanning their surroundings for the reappearance of whatever had led him to Jace and Clary. 

Clary was still clutching her bruised throat, but she managed to rasp out, "Simon? Izzy?" 

"Magnus has gone to save them," Alec replied. "Here, I've got you, lean on me."

They staggered through the mud, Alec supporting Clary while Jace tried to get along on his own steam. They'd barely gone a few steps when Jace stumbled and fell. 

"Jace!"  

"m'ok," Jace croaked, struggling to get up. 

Alec shone his light over at Jace, and noticed something odd - Jace had tripped over a cross poking out of the mud, fashioned from a PVC pipe that was slightly thinner than his wrist. It was the oddest grave marker he had ever seen, obviously makeshift and so modern and out of place amongst the crumbling gravestones that littered the cemetery. There was another similar cross a few feet away, and something about them was tugging at a memory that was just out of reach. 

Then it struck him - two fresh graves in a cemetery that hadn't seen a new burial in probably a few decades. Two other missing participants. Hadn't Dot mentioned that the inmate whose room they were staying in had tortured his victims by burying them alive? 

Were they _still_ alive? How long could someone survive being entombed in the earth, given that the cross apparently served as some sort of breathing tube to prolong the ordeal? They'd been missing for more than 24 hours now, but he had to try - he didn't think he could live with himself if he walked away now, however slim the chances were that they were still alive.

"I think Dot and Elliot are under here. You two keep going, all the way out of the main gate if you can, and go get help. I'm going to get a shovel," he told Jace and Clary, pushing his weapons towards them before he took off towards the greenhouse.

He really shouldn't have been surprised, but when he got back with a shovel, he found Jace trying to dig through the mud with his bare hands while Clary clutched the poker like a lifeline, and huffed in exasperation. 

"What's it going to take for you to listen to me for once?" he grumbled at his brother, nudging him aside so that he could start digging. 

It was slow work, and nothing at all like what they showed on TV. The mud sucked at the shovel every time Alec dug in, the rain kept pooling in the hole he was trying to dig, the handle of the shovel was slippery in the rain, and his back and arms were aching like hell from the effort. Jace tried to indicate that he could take over, but Alec took one look at Jace's bloodshot eyes and the bruises and rope burns purpling his neck, and shook his head firmly. 

Alec hit paydirt about four feet in, the blade of the shovel thumping against something hard. He had to work a little bit more carefully after that so he wouldn't accidentally smash the lid and hurt whoever was inside, if they were still alive, but he soon uncovered enough that he could go in to pry the lid open with the shovel. 

He'd been half afraid of having made a wrong guess and finding a putrid corpse inside, but thankfully he'd been right - this one contained Dot. Her face was dirty and streaked with tears, fingers bloody from probably clawing at the lid until she'd torn her nails off, and there was a huge bruise on her forehead, maybe from banging her head against the lid. The rain was falling on her face now that the lid was open, but she wasn't moving, and Alec was sure they'd been too late. He reached into the coffin with a shaky hand to feel for a pulse, and let out the breath he'd been holding when he found it, feeble but clear. 

He was trying to figure out how to carry her out of the coffin and the hole, when Jace grabbed his shoulder.

"What?" he asked distractedly, not looking up. 

" _Alec_." 

He looked up in surprise at the fear in his brother's voice and looked out over the edge of the grave, and his blood ran cold. There was a fog rolling in from the furthest walls of the Blackthorn estate... and there were _things_ in the fog. 

Magnus couldn't decide if it was worse or better that he couldn't see the ghost girl anymore in the dark, but he could definitely still feel her grip on his ankle. He kicked out again, but there was no physical form to hit, and yet her grip was unbreakable. She tugged harder, pulling him away from Simon, and a feeling of hopelessness began to overwhelm Magnus - not for himself, not yet, but for Simon. How long had Simon been in the water like this? His sense of time had all gone to hell, but surely it had been way too long, and now Magnus couldn't even get to him.

There was a muffled splash, and Magnus was reminded that there was another ghost child somewhere out there. Lungs burning from the lack of air, he clawed towards the surface, fighting the force pulling him down, and thought he felt his hand break through to the air above. But then there was another small pair of hands on his shoulders, pushing him down - he grabbed at them thoughtlessly and his hands closed on nothing, but he knew that the rotted visage of the ghost boy was now right in front of his face in the dark, and squeezed his eyes shut in horror. 

Then Magnus felt movement in the water at his feet, and suddenly the hands on his ankle and shoulders were gone. He opened his eyes in surprise and saw a beam of light cutting across the water. Surging to the surface and gasping for air, Magnus saw Izzy that had dived back into the water, looking terrified out of her mind but brandishing the iron poker in one hand and the flashlight in the other.

With Izzy standing guard, he finally managed to drag Simon out of the water. Simon had gone completely cold and wasn't breathing anymore, and worst of all, when Magnus pressed two fingers to Simon's wrist there was no hint of a pulse. He started CPR on Simon, blowing air into Simon's lungs then pressing the heel of his palm down on his chest to stimulate his heart, while Izzy massaged Simon's cold hands to try to get the blood flowing again, one hand still holding the poker. They were both on edge listening out for anything that might herald another attack from the phantom children, jumping at every giggle and whisper in the shadows, and despite the fact that he was drenched to the bone, Magnus was starting to feel clammy and sweaty.

"Come on, Simon," Magnus muttered, teeth chattering and beginning to despair when Simon remained unresponsive after the third round of chest compressions. He took one more deep breath and exhaled hard into Simon's mouth, and Simon abruptly began to choke, water spilling from his mouth.

"Oh, thank god!" Izzy cried out.

Magnus rolled Simon to his side so he could expel all the water in his lungs properly, then checked his pulse again, and Magnus had to hope that the weak fluttering he thought he could feel under his fingertips wasn't just wishful thinking. "Simon?" he said, patting Simon's cheek. 

"He's not waking up," Izzy said anxiously. 

"There's a pulse, he's alive," Magnus said. "But we need to get him to a hospital, and soon." 

"Let's just get back in the house first, and at least get him - _us_ \- warmed up," Izzy suggested. 

With Izzy's help, he managed to get Simon over his shoulders in a fireman's carry, slipping and sliding on the wet tiles as they made their way out of the pool house. He had half expected that they wouldn't be allowed to leave the pool house, but the spirits were either less powerful out of the water or wary enough of being hit by Izzy's poker again to keep their distance, although a persistent feeling of unease followed him. The short walk to the West wing, however, was turning out to be a bigger challenge than he'd anticipated. Now that the adrenaline was starting to wear off, Magnus was really struggling with the exhaustion from his harrowing swim in the pool, staggering under Simon's weight.

But stepping out of the rain and into the shelter of the West wing felt like anything but relief. Izzy flipped on the light switch of the corridor, and the lights came on, but they were flickering randomly, as if the storm had messed up all the electricity in the house. Magnus was surprised to see two familiar figures just a few feet ahead of them, walking unhurriedly towards the foyer. 

"Alec! Jace!" Izzy called out, and they stopped walking away but didn't turn around. Izzy quickened her pace to catch up with her brothers.

Magnus would recognise them anywhere even in the unsteady light - Alec's head of tousled dark hair and that slight hunch he had, and Jace's too-long blond hair curling at his collar. But Magnus couldn't help noticing that their clothes were completely dry, even though Alec had intended to go out to the cemetery to look for Clary and Jace - and besides, where was Clary? Magnus suddenly recalled the shadowy figures in library, and was overcome with a terrible dread. 

"Isabelle, that's not them!"

But Izzy had already put her hand on the shoulder of the one that looked like Jace. He grabbed her wrist before she could pull away - then the two figures began to turn around very, very slowly. 

Dot began to stir when they carried her out of her would-be grave, but when she opened her eyes her gaze remained blank and she didn't seem to register that she was being spoken to. Alec clambered out of the slippery grave after her and glanced back at the encroaching fog. He could see the figures inside more clearly now, drifting towards them inexorably - an army of the tortured dead inmates of the mental asylum, all in various stages of decay and dressed in identical black and grey uniforms and with a number embroidered on their chests. There must have been a mass grave somewhere near the far wall of the estate where the doctors had hidden the evidence of their abuse, and Alec didn't like to think what would happen if they caught up with them. 

He slung Dot's arm over his shoulder, and the four of them began to run towards the house. 

"Elliot," Dot suddenly whispered. 

"He's gone," Alec said, as gently as he could. He supposed that they would never know for sure, but Elliot's photo had been defaced the way Edward and Milo's had, so he had a feeling that meant that Elliot was already dead. 

"No!" she sobbed, struggling against Alec to try to get back to the place where they'd been buried alive. 

"Dot, calm down!" Alec said. Jace and Clary had heard the commotion and were doubling back for them, and if possible that made Alec even more frantic. "No, go on ahead! I've got this!" 

Dot gave him a particularly hard shove, and both of them fell into the mud. 

"Fuck! Dot, are you ok?" Alec exclaimed, struggling to get up - then suddenly there was a rope around his neck, and he was being dragged backwards into the fog. His hands flew to the noose crushing his windpipe, fighting to breathe while his heels skidded pointlessly over the mud. Alec looked up at his assailant, and found himself staring into the mad eyes of a dead woman. 

 

 


	8. Day Three, 9PM

  

 

One look at the faces of the things that had been pretending to be Jace and Alec, and Magnus could hardly blame Izzy for freezing up like a mouse hypnotised by a snake. The things had managed to mimic the general shape of Jace and Alec's faces, but where there should have been eyes, there were just two bottomless black hollows. Their mouths were gaping holes in their faces, and they were completely, unnaturally silent. With wild terror, Magnus realised that whatever they were, these things were not human - probably hadn't ever been human, not the way a ghost had once been. 

_Les esprits infernaux_ , that horrible spellbook in the library had said in its title, "the infernal spirits". Maybe this was why the ghost children hadn't tried to keep them in the pool house. Why bother, when worse horrors lurked in Blackthorn House?  

Not-Jace put one hand around Izzy's throat; Izzy dropped the poker, sword, and flashlight that had been in her hands, and the flashlight hit the hardwood floor with a very final crack before going out. The thing began to lift her off the floor by her throat with agonising slowness - forcing Izzy to try to balance on the tips of her toes, then lifting her higher inch by inch until it was holding her a couple of feet off the floor. Magnus could hear Izzy choking as it squeezed the life out of her, but she seemed to be in some sort of thrall, her arms hanging limply at her side like she was a puppet that had had its strings cut, making no move to defend herself. 

Then the one that had stolen Alec's shape turned its attention on Magnus, and began to move towards him.

Magnus knew he should run. He was exhausted and didn't know how long more he could go on, but he should get the fuck out of here with Simon, and take their chances with whatever else was out there. But he couldn't just leave Izzy behind to die. 

He set Simon down as gently as he could, placing him leaning against a wall, keeping his eyes on the thing that was slowly advancing on them. He held both hands out in front of him and moved to shield Simon. 

"We just want to get out of this place. I'm sorry if we've disturbed your peace," Magnus said, wondering if the thing could even be reasoned with. "Please, just let us go."

Not-Alec didn't answer, but continued its deliberate pace forward, and Magnus supposed that was the only answer he was getting. It was only a few feet away now, but Magnus couldn't help but notice that it was moving pretty slowly. Magnus glanced around the corridor for anything that he might be able to use as a weapon, but there was nothing - unless, of course, he could get his hands on the poker and sword that Izzy had dropped.

He was already bracing himself to dash past the thing so he could get to the weapons and Izzy, determined to try and buy them all some time, when Simon groaned and stirred from behind him.

"What happened?" Simon mumbled. Magnus didn't dare to take his eyes off the approaching thing, but he heard Simon's low moan of horror, and knew that he must have seen it as well. "Izzy? Where's Izzy?" Simon asked weakly.

Then the strangest thing happened - there was a sudden burst of light from Izzy's chest, and the thing that was holding her screeched, a horrible unearthly sound that Magnus found that he heard directly in his head, instead of through his ears. It let her go, then both doppelgangers spun on the spot and disappeared.

The lights in the hallway went back to normal immediately. Magnus blinked in the sudden brightness, still trying to figure out what had granted them their unexpected reprieve, then rushed forward to check on Izzy. She was coughing and was very disorientated, but seemed as ok as could be hoped for in the circumstances. Magnus glanced around, watching out for the return of the things, but they seemed well and truly gone for now.

Then his gaze lighted on Simon's medallion hanging around Izzy's neck, and Magnus frowned. It looked completely ordinary now, just a plain silver circle with the Star of David embossed on it. That light had to have come from this, but why had it started working only now? Sure, it was a religious symbol, but Magnus had a feeling that it wasn't that simple.

He turned to ask Simon, but Simon was leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, and Magnus wasn't sure if he'd passed out again. He looked strange without his glasses - Magnus belatedly realised that they must have dropped them in the pool. And he had to admit that Simon really wasn't looking too good - he was deathly pale, and in fact was kind of turning blue around the lips. They really needed to get warmed up with hot drinks and the like, or the cold would do them all in before the ghost and demons did.

But that would mean that they'd have to go to the dining room... which also meant that they would have to go past the foyer, and the grisly scene he and Alec had discovered. Magnus heaved a sigh, dreading it already, and went to help Simon up, fingers crossed that Alec and the rest had already returned safely to the main house so they could all get the fuck out of this place.  

Magnus ended up having to support both Izzy and Simon, especially on the stairs, but he managed to get them all the way down the main staircase without any incident. He hadn't told Izzy and Simon about what had happened to Edward and Milo yet, but he supposed it couldn't be avoided now, since Milo's head had been right there when they left- 

"Magnus? What are you looking around for?" Izzy asked nervously.

"They're gone," Magnus said, still staring at the blood-stained, empty spots where the two suits of armour had been.

The dead woman had stopped dragging Alec through the mud, which was a slight relief. Alec clawed at the rope around his throat and managed to pull it away just enough to gulp in a breath or two. He looked around for the ghost and saw the pipe cross, and realised that they were back next to the muddy hole which held Dot's empty coffin - then suddenly _she_ was there, leaning over him, her long black hair brushing his shoulders, which was decidedly _not_ a relief. He screwed his eyes shut, but even if he couldn't see her she was so close that Alec could feel her rank breath on his face, the stench of it foul beyond measure, and Alec choked from the taste of bile rising in his throat as his stomach heaved. 

"The red door! The red door!" she hissed. 

_What?_ Alec thought, bewildered. 

" _He's_ making me," the dead woman whispered sorrowfully, in a voice that sounded like her throat was full of grave dirt - in fact, Alec was pretty sure he was feeling specks of grave dirt landing on his face as she spoke. "I'm sorry that I have to do this."

Sorry that she had to do what? Alec's eyes flew open in panic, because that sounded ominous as fuck, and was just in time to see her hand reaching to cover his face, her palm black with rot and dirt, before the blade of a shovel swung right above him. The ghost let out a shriek and vanished, then Jace was hauling Alec to his feet. 

"Run!" Jace wheezed out. 

He could see Dot and Clary stumbling along ahead, already halfway to making their way back to the house, but Alec could feel the chill of the fog right at his back. He didn't dare to look back to see how close it was, just took off as fast as his feet could carry him, taking off and flinging the noose that was still dangling around his neck behind him. He felt cold fingers grabbing at his shirt and his ankles one too many times, but thankfully nothing managed to get a proper grip on him. They caught up with the other two, then Alec scooped Dot up in his arms so they could move faster, and they didn't stop until Jace slammed the door of the East wing hallway behind them.

"Oh my god," Jace breathed, slumping against the door - then a pair of ghostly hands reached through the wood and grabbed him around the neck. Clary screamed but had the presence of mind to swing the poker at them to get them to let go of Jace, and Alec quickly pulled Jace away from the door, then grabbed the shovel from Jace and used it to bar the door.

"Fucking hell!" Jace gasped hoarsely, clutching his neck and staring wide-eyed at the door.

They backed away in trepidation, but the shovel seemed to be holding - cold iron, Alec remembered, and started to wonder if they should have just holed up in the greenhouse, surrounded by gardening tools. He looked around at the four of them; they were drenched, muddy, bruised and battered, and Dot couldn't even stand on her own two feet, which wasn't surprising since she hadn't had anything to eat or drink for a whole day. 

"Come on. Dining room - we need to regroup," Alec said.

There was a knock on the door of the dining room and the door knob rattled as someone on the other side tried to turn it. Magnus looked up warily from the food he was tiredly forcing himself to eat despite his lack of appetite, if only for the sake of keeping his energy up. They'd barred all the doors and windows in the dining room and kitchen with anything they could get their hands on that was made of iron, and thankfully there had been plenty in the kitchen - pots, skillets, coal tongs, skewers, even ladles. But he'd been on edge since he'd found out that the bodies of Edward and Milo were missing.

"Magnus?"

That sounded like Alec's voice, but Magnus had been burned once before with the scream that had tricked him to the balcony. He got up to stand near the door, careful to stay at least an arm's length away. 

"What's the title of my first book?" he asked.

" _Bad For Business_ ," Alec replied without pause. "Unless you're asking me which one is the first in terms of chronological order of events, in which case it's _The Warlock's Promise_." 

Magnus huffed in amusement, and quickly removed the ladle they'd used to bar the door, and opened the door - then nearly slammed the door shut again in shock when he caught sight of Dot's pale face amongst the group.

"Dot?" Izzy cried out in surprise, already rushing over. 

Magnus quickly scanned the exhausted faces of the second group as they came in through the door - no Elliot. He locked and barred the door with a heavy heart and pulled Dot into a hug. "Oh, my dear. I'm so sorry."

Izzy hugged her brothers in tearful relief, before coming over to hug Dot tightly. Between Clary and Izzy, they got Dot settled with food and water, murmuring comforting words and keeping their arms around her. Dot seemed too tired to even cry anymore, her grief etched in harsh lines on her face. Magnus took out the first aid kit he'd found in the pantry and helped to dress minor wounds while everyone else ate mechanically in weary silence. 

"Did you move the two suits of armour somewhere?" Alec asked Magnus in a low voice, then looked grim when Magnus shook his head.

"The five phones on the mantlepiece are dead. I took apart that smoke detector with the hidden camera a while ago, trying to get the attention of the TV crew, and telling them very clearly that they had at least two dead participants, but there's been no response. I'm guessing that the House is preventing them from coming in to help us," Magnus told him.

"Ok, then we need to find a way to get out ourselves," Alec said. "The back wall is out - the entire cemetery is overrun with fog and murderous ghosts." 

"The front gate, then. Even if the phone isn't in working order and there's nobody nearby to hear us, we have some tools at our disposal and can probably try to pry the gates off its hinges," Magnus said decisively, then tugged Alec over to where Simon was sitting. 

"Simon, we need to talk to you. Do you know why your medallion started glowing out of the blue and chased those things away?" Magnus asked. Simon shook his head helplessly.

"What were you thinking about, when that happened?" Magnus pressed on.

"Um... I guess I was wondering where Izzy was? But I knew she had my Bubbie Helen's medallion, so I was hoping that she'd be ok," Simon replied. "I'm sure it chased the things away because, you know, they were evil. And the medallion has the _Magen David_ on it - the shield of David."

"Then let's just draw it on our clothes or something, and we can all get out of here," Jace suggested from where he was sitting next to Simon.

"I don't think it works that way. I think it worked only because _Simon_ believed, because this particular item is important to him," Magnus said carefully. "That's why it didn't work when Simon was unconscious."

"Dude, I'll believe in the flying spaghetti monster if it'll get us out of here," Jace said, his voice still raspy from his injuries. "Besides, it doesn't matter if we don't - Simon does. He'll have faith enough for all of us."

"Uh... sure," Simon said, not sounding sure at all.

Alec exchanged a look with Magnus and shrugged, and honestly, Magnus felt the same. There was a tangle here in the reasons why Simon's medallion - his grandmother's medallion - had worked against the evil that lurked in the House, that Magnus thought might be a mixture of faith, love, and loving memories, too complicated and impossible to unravel. But whatever it was, they did at least have one more weapon on their hands.

"Well, no time like the present," Magnus said. "Everyone listen up - grab something made of iron, and we're leaving."

There was a flurry to grab the sharpest iron tools available while Clary drew Stars of David on the palms of their hands with a sharpie that she always carried in her pocket. They were almost ready to leave when there was a knock on the door, and the door knob rattled like someone on the other side was trying to turn it. Magnus had an odd sense of déjà vu, like he was going to go up and open the door to find Alec's group outside, only to turn back and find that the ones that he'd already let in, that had sat and ate and talked with them, were just more of those terrifying things with the hollow eyes and gaping mouths.

"Hey guys! What are you all doing in there, and why didn't you invite us along?" a voice called from outside the door, and Magnus recognised it immediately - it was Milo. 

Everyone looked shocked and horrified. Both groups had updated each other on what they'd faced when they had been separated, and Alec and Magnus had told them about finding the bodies in the suits of armour, so they all knew that whatever was out there was either a demon or a ghost.

"Come on, I thought we were all friends!" Milo's voice came from the other side of the door. He sounded as cheery as usual, but there was an odd quality to his voice that Alec couldn't quite put his finger on. 

"What do we do now?" Clary whispered. 

The only other way out of the dining room was to the kitchen, then out into the courtyard by the servants' door. But that would only take them deeper into the grounds, far away from the main gate.

"The House is using them to try to stop us from leaving," Alec said, recalling what the ghost woman had said - that she hadn't wanted to do whatever she'd been about to do to Alec, that someone or something else was controlling her. He gripped his sword more tightly. "I'll open the door, and try to keep him out of your way. The rest of you just run for the main door and get out of here, I'll catch up."

Jace picked up the other sword. "I'll stay with you."

Alec shook his head. "No, there's still Edward, remember? If they're in the suits of armour, I think these pokers and skewers are going to be useless. I need you to stick with the rest, in case Edward is waiting for us somewhere else." 

"Then I'll stay with you," Magnus said, gently but firmly. 

It was probably pretty selfish of him, but as he nodded, Alec couldn't help feeling a little bit relieved that he wouldn't have to face it alone.

Magnus went up to the door, and held up three fingers - three, two, one - he removed the ladle and unlocked the door in one swift motion, then threw the door open and flung the ladle right at the head of the apparition. Or at least, where his head should have been, because Milo was cradling his own head in his arms. 

"Finally!" Milo declared, face contorted into a macabre rictus of a smile. 

Jace let out a yell of horror, but Magnus and Alec were already moving forward, shoving the apparition out of the doorway. Alec hadn't really expected it to work, and was so surprised that he nearly fell forward with the momentum. 

"Go!" Magnus roared, startling the rest of the group into action. Jace led the way, with Izzy supporting Simon and Clary supporting Dot.

The ghost staggered backwards in its armour, losing its head in the process, but it was still trying to go after them.

" _Stay away from the red door_ ," Milo's head snarled from where it had fallen onto the floor.

Alec dodged a clumsy punch from the headless armour that dented the wall where his throat had been moments before, then rammed his sword through a chink in the armour. At the same time, Magnus, who was standing over the head, stabbed it right through with the poker, and the ghost of Milo Keytower vanished with a scream, leaving behind an empty suit of armour.

The rest of the group were already running out of the front door, into the never-ending rain, and down the steps. Alec and Magnus ran out after them and into the overgrown garden, and Alec felt a small surge of hope. They were almost there - the gates couldn't be more than two dozen yards away.

They only had one working flashlight now, the light from it strong and sure ahead of them, and for a long while there was no other sound all around except the perfectly normal pitter-patter of rain falling on the leaves and grass, and their footfalls as they jogged through the garden. But after a while they came up against the high hedge that made up part of the hedge maze, when they certainly hadn't been heading in that direction.

"What the fuck?" Jace muttered.

Jace shone the light behind them, and to Alec's growing unease, he saw that there was a hedge wall behind them too, then to his left and right - as if ten feet of dense shrubbery had all sprouted up around them whenever their heads were turned in the opposite direction.

Alec gave Jace a lift on his shoulders so he could cautiously poke his head over the top of the hedges. "Ok, the gates are right there," he reported. 

"Just keep going," Alec suggested, although the little spark of hope he'd had was slowly dying.

They kept walking, but the last few yards they need to cross to reach the gates seemed endless. Every corner they turned stretched out to towering dark bushes on either side, and perhaps it was just Alec's imagination, but the pathway seemed to be getting narrower and narrower until he was starting to feel claustrophobic. 

"I feel like we've been walking for hours," Simon muttered, wiping rain out of his eyes. 

"What was that strategy for getting out of a maze? Always keep your hand on the right wall, or something like that?" Izzy asked wearily.

"I think that would only work on mazes that are not of the supernatural variety," Magnus said. "We've checked our direction countless times, and no matter whether we're trying to move towards the gates or back to the house, we're still stuck here." 

"Guys, stop," Alec finally said. They might as well face it - they were just going to tire themselves out if they went on. 

He pressed the backlight on his watch. Simon wasn't wrong, they really had been walking for hours, since it was past three o'clock in the morning. Four more hours to daybreak, when the TV crew was supposed to come back - they just had to survive four more hours of being drenched and sitting in a dark garden, and hope that nothing creepy came out of nowhere to do them all in. Assuming, of course, that the TV crew would even be able to come in or find them before night fell again. 

Jace scowled at the hedge nearest to him, then a gleam came into his eyes, and Alec immediately recognised that look on his brother's face - Jace had obviously come up with another stupidly bad idea. 

"Jace, no-" he began, but Jace had already lifted his arm, swinging the sword in his hand at the nearest hedge. 

Alec half expected the hedge to fight back, but nothing happened to Jace as he hacked away at the branches until he broke through to the other side. "Fingers crossed that it isn't more hedge," he said, before peering through the hole that he'd made. "Ok, fuck. It isn't more hedge, but we're back at the House." 

"And you've wrecked the sword," Izzy observed, though without her usual bite.

From the gap in the hedge, the silhouette of Blackthorn House reared threateningly against the stormy sky. They hadn't bothered switching the lights off when they'd fled from the house, but the top floors were all dark, and its rows of windows felt like great blank eyes looking down on them with the arrogance of something that was going to squash them like bugs. And yet, three times now they'd been warned to stay away from the red door in the basement - first by the kids, then the woman, and now Milo.

As if reading his mind, Magnus said, "I think I know where we have to go."

Three days ago, they'd pushed open the main door and stepped into the foyer, just like this, Magnus thought - but back then, walking up the steps of Blackthorn House hadn't felt like walking into battle.

The foyer was empty except for Milo, who was waiting for them at the foot of the main stairs, his head back on his shoulders for now. "That wasn't very nice of you guys, to stab a man when he's already dead," he said conversationally.

The stairs that led to the basement were behind the main staircase. They could stick to the walls and give Milo's ghost a wide berth, but Magnus wasn't sure how fast he could move, and they still hadn't seen Edward. The seven of them held their weapons at ready and moved in slowly, and every single one of Magnus' instincts were jangling in warning, that this was obviously a trap. 

The next breath that Magnus exhaled came out in a cloud of white.

It was like a cold snap had suddenly swept over the room. Because all of them were soaked to the bone, all of them felt the sudden chill like a shock to the body. Milo smiled at them, a too-wide, gummy grin that pulled his lips over his teeth, and they heard a clank behind them - and Edward stepped into view, blocking the way to the main door. Edward wasn't wearing his helmet, and his face looked severely bruised. The front of his chest plate was bloody, his tongue limp and dripping from where it hung out from the ragged gash in his throat. Edward grinned at all of them as well, and Alec could see that his teeth were all red and bloodied.

"Sorry if he startled you, Ed's always been the quiet one. But now I guess he's going to be even quieter," Milo joked, and took a step towards them. "We're so glad that you could join the party. We've _all_ been waiting for you."

_All?_  

"I'm all into parties, but I'm afraid we'll have to decline - there's somewhere else we'd rather be," Magnus bit out.  

Then the lights began to flicker erratically, and the reason for the sudden freezing temperature became apparent. In the fleeting moments of darkness between the light, Magnus could see glimpses of dozens of people closing in on them, people dressed in clothing from different eras, as if there was a fancy dress party going on - a fancy dress party for the dead. Most of them looked like they should have been young and strong, in the prime of their lives, and every single one bore bloody evidence of how they had died - crushed skulls, mangled bodies, necks bent at unnatural angles, drowned faces.

And every time the lights went out, they got a little closer, their smiles a little wider. 

"Elliot!" Dot suddenly whispered, and in the next flicker Magnus saw him too - Dot's mild-mannered and rather sweet husband, standing barely visible in the shadows.

"You left me behind to die," he said accusingly. "I was still alive when they dug you out. You left me to die alone, suffocating in the earth." 

Dot let out a low moan of pain and horror. 

"It's lying," Magnus said sharply. "Don't believe a word it's saying, Elliot loves you and would never blame you." 

"Exactly. And to think that all that time, I was thinking of you - thinking about how much I loved you," Elliot's ghost continued cruelly.

"Leave her alone, asshole," Jace said, shakily held up the hand that had the Star of David drawn on it, and all around them the faces of the dead turned jeering and mocking. 

"What's the matter, Jace?" Milo sneered, taking another deliberate step forward. "I thought you weren't afraid of ghosts."

The next time the light flickered out, Magnus saw that the spirits closest to them were grinning with maniacal glee, fingers curved like claws and arms outstretched, ready to pounce.

But then the medallion at Izzy's throat began to glow, a strange ethereal light spilling from it. The ghosts grimaced and backed away, and an expression of quiet confidence began to grow on Simon's face. 

" _The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want_ ," Simon started to recite, and the light from the medallion grew stronger. Izzy took a step towards Milo, brandishing her iron poker in front of her threateningly, and he shrank away, snarling.

Simon took a deep breath and continued, " _He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul, he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake_."

The light from the medallion was almost blinding now. With Izzy leading the way, they managed to make it all the way to the stairs that led down to the basement unmolested, although the ghosts continued to trail behind them. Simon and Izzy stood guard at the stairs while the rest made their way down carefully - Magnus and Alec, Clary and Dot, then Jace, lingering behind close to his sister and Simon. Magnus wrinkled his nose as he went down - the basement smelled like something had crawled in there and died, then rotted in high heat over the summer, but there was nowhere else to go but forward.

" _And though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me_ ," Simon finished as he backed down the stairs slowly, still keeping an eye on the ghosts, which were now gathered at the top, just glaring menacingly at them. It was almost as if they were afraid of coming down, and it wasn't just the medallion keeping them back.

Magnus had a bad feeling that they were going to find out what ghosts were afraid of. 

Magnus and Alec had reached the bottom of the stairs now, their shoes squelching in something, and Magnus didn't want to know what it was. The red door was to their right, as Camille had told them. Alec wrenched it open - to a yawning darkness, a great nothingness. He shone his flashlight in, and it was like shining a light into a blackhole.

Alec looked uncertainly at Magnus, but Magnus took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. It was the right way to go, it had to be. 

"We're going to have to hold hands so that we don't lose each other," Magnus announced, and one by one the seven of them linked hands: Alec, Magnus, Dot, Clary, Jace, Izzy, and Simon. 

Simon was the last one through the door, glaring defiantly back at the spirits. "Yeah, that's right. Stay the fuck away from all of us," he snapped, then slammed the door shut behind him, and then they were all engulfed in darkness. 

The flashlight was useless, so Alec tucked it in his jacket pocket to conserve the batteries. Wherever they were, it was cold but not extraordinarily so, and completely silent - not quiet, the way it sometimes got where you could still hear a faint hum in the air. The only sound Alec could hear was his own heartbeat, and the only light was the medallion at Izzy's neck, still glowing.

They kept walking in the darkness aimlessly, the blind leading the blind. Alec was about 90% sure he had made a huge mistake; the other 10% was Magnus' hand gripping his firmly, the memory of the conviction on Magnus' face when they'd both agreed that they had to go through the red door, the way the iron was burning cold in his hand, and the prickling feeling at the back of his neck that told the skittery animal part of his brain that they were being observed by something that was waiting to rip them limb from limb and suck the marrow out of their bones. 

"I'm not sure this is an improvement," Jace finally said. "Where the fuck are we?" 

"Where you shouldn't be," something in the darkness replied, and Alec shivered. He could have sworn that he had heard it in his mind rather than through his ears - a deep, grating sound that had absolutely nothing in common with any human voice and set his teeth on edge with the _wrongness_ of it. 

"Who are you? Speak your name!" Magnus demanded. 

"I am something very, very old." 

"Not older than God," Simon said defiantly.

"Oh, not older than the entity that you call your god, but certainly older than the lines you drew in the mud to ward off the shadows in the dark, older than your rituals and your symbols, your bell and book and candle," the thing replied. "Do you think that the bauble that hangs around her neck will protect all of you?" 

"It's obviously keeping you away," Clary retorted.

"For now - as long as the one who believes stays awake," the thing replied slyly. "So weak, so vulnerable - you need food, water, air, sleep - while I need none of those things."

"And yet you're speaking to us instead of just waiting us out," Alec pointed out quietly. "What do you want?"

"I'm bored of you wandering around my lair. But for now, I suppose we are at a standstill, since I cannot touch you yet. So how about I offer you a deal?" 

"What deal?" Magnus asked warily.

"One of your number. Just one of you, and the rest of you can go free." 

"Never," Izzy spat out.

" _Never_ is such an awfully short time, especially for creatures like you," it reminded them. "We could stand here all day and let you feel righteous, but in the end you will all succumb to me." 

"Yeah, well, tough luck. Nobody wants to spend eternity as your ghost puppet, I wonder why," Jace said. "Maybe you need to offer a better dental plan."

Then Dot took a deep breath, and pulled Magnus and Clary's hands towards her until they were close enough to touch. 

"Dot, what are you doing?" Clary cried out, but it was too late - she let go of their hands and stepped away from the line, raising her iron skewer.

"Let go of my husband, you fucking bastard," Dot said fiercely, and ran into the darkness before any of them could do anything to stop her. 

To their surprise, the stillness around them erupted into a howling storm, and all around them they could feel the anger and confusion of the thing in the darkness. It was all Alec could do to hold on to Magnus' hand and stay on his feet, wasn't even sure if Magnus had managed to grab Clary's hand properly before the world had gone mad.

Alec couldn't say for sure how long the storm raged - maybe minutes, maybe hours - then the storm passed as abruptly as it had started, and they found themselves crouched down in a dank tunnel - no Dot, no monster, and the medallion at Izzy's neck was just plain silver again. 

Judging from the texture of the tunnel walls, the tunnel must have been some sort of natural underground cavern that the Blackthorns had accidentally discovered when building the house, repurposed as an emergency escape or smugglers' tunnel. They followed the steep sloping tunnel all the way to a tiny entrance about three feet across, partially hidden behind a pile of rocks. Magnus and Alec had the worst time of the six of them crawling out of the tiny hole, but when they picked themselves up, they found that they were on the side of a small hill behind the Blackthorn estate. 

It wasn't quite dawn yet, the sky still a deep shade of blue, but at least the rain had stopped. From their vantage point, they could see the TV crew spilling out of their vans and approaching the gates of Blackthorn House, and in the distance, Magnus could hear the wailing of approaching sirens - ambulances and police, probably. Magnus wondered what the TV crew had seen from all the hidden cameras, or even if there'd been anything to see. Maybe the cameras had fizzled into static whenever strange things were going on, and the crew had simply assumed that the cameras were malfunctioning. Or perhaps they'd known something was wrong with Blackthorn House, but like all of them, they'd just convinced themselves that ghosts didn't exist until it was too late.

Whatever it was, the whole thing had been a mess. And they should probably get back down there - after they'd gotten their story straight for the police, of course, so they wouldn't all be sent to an asylum. 

Magnus felt Alec come to stand beside him, and slipped his hand into his.

"Did she kill it, do you think?" Alec asked. 

Magnus shook his head slowly. "I doubt so. Don't you feel it still? Even from here - that hatred, and bitterness." 

Alec nodded. "So what do we do now?" 

"I can't decide if I never want to see or hear anything about Blackthorn House again, or if I want to find out everything I can about what Blackthorn summoned, kill it, and raze this place to the ground, so it can never hurt anybody again," Magnus replied. 

Alec hummed contemplatively. "Well, let me know when you've decided," he said, pulling him close.

"Let's go. I think that TV crew has some answering to do," Izzy said as the rest came up behind them. 

And as the six of them made their way down the hill, a new day, gloomy and damp, began to dawn over the grounds of Blackthorn House.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End.
> 
>  
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed the story! (And thank goodness I made the deadline *whew*) Thank you for all the lovely comments and livetweeting, it's been a blast writing for you guys!
> 
> Come find me at @tethysea on Twitter or @la-muerta on tumblr if that's your thing! Until next time, XOXO.
> 
>  
> 
> **Update:** Ok, I know some of you are asking about a sequel/epilogue. The thing is, I did write an epilogue, but it raised even more questions, so I didn't post it LOL So we'll see, maybe we haven't seen the last of Blackthorn House yet ;)


End file.
